Many Finnish speed cameras were out of action for a long period due to a hardware issue — but road safety didn’t noticeably suffer. This week’s APN explores Finns’ relationship with speed once they get behind the wheel.
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Image: Heikki Haapalainen
Do Finns drive too fast? That’s the question posed by the recent news that many of the country’s older speed cameras had been out of action for months due to out-of-date routers.
The cameras are gradually coming back online, but police remain concerned about Finns’ tolerance for speed — which a recent survey suggests is higher than in many other European countries.
Police chose to headline that press release “In a hurry to die and tired of life?”, in an effort to shock Finnish motorists into slowing down a little.
“Speeding is much too usual in Finland because maybe everyone thinks they are good drivers and can choose the speed they use because they can react so rapidly,” said Superintendent Tuomo Katajisto at the National Police Board.
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Do Finns have a need for speed?
Despite the speed camera issues, experts say that Finnish roads are quite safe — even if there are a few people who drive like they might be the next big rally star from Finland. That stems from the culture, according to Pasi Anteroinen of the Finnish Road Safety Council.
“That’s the magic word, culture,” said Anteroinen. “I do believe we have a speeding culture. We call ourselves the Rally Nation, and we admire drivers who drive fast and that’s why we accept speeding more than other countries.”
That said, Finland’s roads are the seventh safest in Europe, according to the latest statistics. So does it really matter if people drive a little faster than they should?
Niko Kettunen, a science and motoring journalist, told APN that a certain amount of speeding is baked in.
“There is this magic area where people know that they will not get fined, usually seven kilometres above the limit as I think is the case in many other countries,” said Kettunen, who has driven extensively in the US and Canada as well as Finland.
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Egan Richardson and Ronan Browne presented this episode of All Points North. The sound engineer was Tuomas Vauhkonen.
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Publish date : 2024-09-26 05:03:00
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