Living in Finland: Retrograde Steps

Retrograde Steps

The City of Oulu in Finland used to be of the very best cities in the world for pedestrians, cycles and slow moving mopos and scooters, as they had separate tracks for these apart from the roads. Only in the city centre, where all traffic is slow moving, did the scooters merge with the road traffic.

It was possible for me to go from our home to the office without once driving on the road. It was fast and safe.

Some pedestrians, quite unwarrantedly, started a campaign to take the scooters off these special tracks. Last week this was implemented.

My first reaction after driving my scooter on the roads was that the number of fatal accidents of scooter drivers is going to increase sharply. Also it will be quite impossible for scooter drivers to be on the road once the snow arrives. I used to be able to drive my scooter all through winter. albeit slowly, when I was driving on the slow moving tracks.

The reason why accidents will increase is that most scooters do not have the power to drive at the speed limits set for the roads - 40, 50, 60 and 80 kmph. 40 kmph YES. 50 kmph at a stretch, YES. But 60 and 80 kmph is quite impossible.

Hence, motorists - car and truck drivers will be impatient when they come up behind a slow moving scooter, and the impatience will make them to swing out into the centre to overtake these scooters.

This will have two effects. The oncoming traffic will be jeopardised and secondly, when these bigger vehicles overtake these light weight scooters, they will cause the scooters to wobble and be unstable.

As a result the only conclusion to expect will be a possible accident of either the larger vehicle or the scooter.

People will express concern, but it must be said that these activists who lobbied for this quite unnecessary change - will have blood on their hands!

Using a GPS Navigator - Good or Bad Development?

Yesterday I went to south Finland to unknown territory. I borrowed Sunil's Global Positioning System (GPS) Navigator. It is not an expensive one, but has all the basic functions.



After my trip I sat down to analyse whether using the GPS Navigator is a good or bad technological and social development.

It was absolutely superb in that I lost no time finding the half a dozen places that I had to visit. I just followed the voice which told me exactly what to do, and the map on the small screen with the picture of the car pointed exactly where I was.

This development of a couple of metres accuracy for this system had been held back by the Americans for quite a few years as they did not want the general public to get this technology for common use.

The other great feature was that it had most of the fixed radar cameras listed on the highway, and it also warned me if I was above the speed limit when approaching them. I could see which cars had the GPS Navigator fixed, as they would be zooming along, and then suddenly they would slow down from 120 kmph to 60 kmph!

Considering I got a Euro 115 fine a few weeks ago when Annikki and I were on our way to Helsinki, as I could not see a snow covered speed sign, investment of Euro 70 or 80 in a GPS Navigator is certainly paid for in just this as well as the amount of petrol one saves when driving around a new city looking for a location.

I remember on my last trip to Helsinki I drove around 350 km looking for places and spent the good part of a day just missing the right locations!

However, using the GPS Navigator has very serious social implications - - bad ones.

In the old days I had a fantastic sense of direction. I could look at a map and find the location almost with a sense of smell. And once I visited a place, I could go back to it again and again as my brain had registered the coordinates.

That is a human trait which has dwindled over the years. Animals have retained this intelligence, as also many other traits which humans no longer possess. That intelligence will be even further degraded as kids start to use the GPS Navigator as their mode of locating places rather than their brain and the Compass.

The great sport of "Forest Navigation", which is extremely popular in all the Scandinavian countries, will lose its significance and importance as more and more youngsters take to using the GPS Navigator.

The second serious implication is that speed limits on the roads will lose their meaning. As more vehicles get fitted with GPS Navigators, and the speed trap cameras with their radar system are logged on to the system, motorists will drive at whatever speed they want to and slow down when the GPS Navigator tells them that they are approaching a camera and radar installation.

Not only is this a dangerous development but it shows a class divide in that those who are wealthy and technologically savvy enough to get hold of a GPS Navigator will avoid the penalties while the poor will have to be punished, for what sometimes may be just a genuine mistake.

In short, less money for the Government, more danger on the roads, and probably a higher accident rate on the highways!

Technological advancement or a retrograde step in the development of mankind?