Behind the wheel, the Finns are the most obedient souls in Europe

Study suggests Swedes relish speed and Italians reckon they are the best drivers

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By Juha Salonen
     
      If we are to believe the findings of a recent research study, the Finns are the most obedient European nation when they get behind the wheel of a car.
      Finns take an understanding view of speed limits and they adhere to them more submissively than do their European fellows. They buckle up like they are told to, they seldom drive under the influence, and even pedestrians are normally treated with due consideration.
      This is the decidedly unrebellious image that is presented of us in a new SARTRE (for "Social Attitudes to Road Traffic Risk in Europe") study, in which drivers from 23 European countries were interviewed. The Finnish interviews and the collating of the Finnish data was in the hands of the Building & Transport unit of VTT, the Technical Research Centre of Finland.
     
The study suggests that the most lax attitudes towards road safety and driving in general are to be found in the Mediterranean countries.
      Down there the drivers are less reluctant to take the wheel after they have had a few drinks, and they are also willing to leave their seat-belts hanging in the straps without demur.
     
This is not to say that the need-for-speed mentality and a somewhat negative attitude towards traffic supervision are completely unknown in the protestant and pedantic north, however.
      In the "lead-weighted right foot" department, the Finns show up as a European snail, practically a Third World country. Our dear neighbour and rival Sweden, by contrast, manages in this category to get herself up into the Top 3, beaten only by Cyprus and Poland.
      The Poles brought the European Union an annual 8,000 road deaths when they joined last May.
      The Swedes are not shy about admitting they like to step on it. Swedish drivers also take the most nonchalant attitude to the relationship between excessive speeds and accidents.
     
Rather more than 40% of the Swedish respondents confessed to "enjoying driving fast".
      Way back in the dust kicked up by the wheels of the Swedes and the Poles come the Finnish drivers. One in four of them admitted their own fondeness for speed.
      This puts the undisputed kings of the World Rally Championship in the company of Croatia and bottom-placed Ireland, where only 18% said they liked driving fast.
     
If it is aggression you are looking for, then Germany would seem to be the place to go. German drivers give nearly as good as they get.
      Rather more than 60% of the German drivers responding to the survey reported that they had been the object of other road-users’ aggressive behaviour. One in five Germans also acknowledged that they had themselves taken out their aggressions while behind the wheel in the course of the previous 12 months.
      No other country managed to get onto the podium in both these categories. Then again, the Italian and the Swiss drivers were both prepared to admit to a greater willingness to use their elbows in traffic than even the Germans were.
     
Not to worry, though - at least not in Italy. Nearly eight out of ten Italian respondents (77%) said their own driving was less dangerous than that of other drivers around them. With this declaration, the heirs to the Roman charioteers bagged the top spot, ahead of the Irish and the Portuguese.
      The Finns, on the other hand, are typically reluctant to blow their own trumpet about such matters. They came last, by a country mile. Drivers up here took the most critical view of their own driving among all of the 23 countries, with only 45% believing they were better at it than their fellow road-users.
      In every other country in the survey, more than half of the drivers interviewed implied that they kept a watchful eye on what the idiots around and behind them were doing.
     
And on the subject of "the idiots behind them", the unofficial European tail-gating champions are the Greeks, followed (presumably too close behind them ) by drivers from Cyprus. The proud Poles, who had earlier enjoyed driving fast, nevertheless found themselves down near the bottom of the heap in the category of "sitting on the guy in front’s exhaust pipe". Perhaps they overtake instead.
      The most risky overtaking manoeuvres are to be found in the Czech Republic, Cyprus, and particularly in Slovakia, which is also the country where one is most likely to be involved in an accident involving personal injuries. In this category, too, Finland was hidden away towards the back of the field.
     
Driving through a yellow light (and by inference probably also through a "fresh red" one) is found most commonly in Cyprus. Other drivers with an urgent need to get through traffic-lights can be found in Italy, Greece, and Portugal. At least according to the replies from Finland, traffic lights are treated with greater respect here than anywhere else.
      The drivers who are most considerate towards pedestrians, and who are most likely to stop voluntaritly at a pedestrian crossing, are the British. In Spain, it is more a matter of pedestrians looking out for themselves.
     
Alcohol and driving was most prevalent in the wine-growing countries of the Mediterranean belt. In Italy at least a third of respondents in all age-groups admitted having driven at least once a week in a state where they were probably over the legal limit.
      The Italians are followed in their drink-driving habits by the Spanish, Portuguese, and the French. In Germany, meanwhile, the figure was less than half of that for these three.
      The countries where drivers are most likely to be completely "dry" at the wheel are Poland and Sweden. In both these countries, the idea of a zero-tolerance approach to drinking and driving also gains the most widespread support (more than 70% of respondents).
      The Finnish drivers, too, claimed to have a solid social stance on alcohol, in international comparisons: only a few percent of those interviewed admitted driving after they had had a drink or two. Half of the Finnish respondents were in favour of zero tolerance for DUI offenders.
     
One of the most striking differences was in the likelihood of one’s being breath-tested when at the wheel.
      The police net is by far the tightest in Finland, Estonia, Slovakia, and Sweden.
      In Finland, nearly two in three said that at some time in the previous three years they had been asked to blow into a police alcometer, while in 4th-placed Sweden it was over 40%.
      This compares starkly with the more than 90% of British, Irish, or Italian drivers who said they had not been stopped and checked in the past three years.
      In Italy, the figure was just 4% who said they had been breathalysed by police - one-sixteenth of the Finnish enforcement level.
     
Talking on a mobile phone while driving is most common in Cyprus, Estonia, and Italy. In this category, Nokialand demonstrates a certain measure of sporting solidarity by coming slightly above halfway in the table.
      Finns are conscientious about putting on their seat-belts. Only the Irish, British, and French are more eager to buckle up.
      The opposite is true in Southern Europe, with Italy, Croatia, Greece, and Spain leading the way in not bothering.
      Roughly one in three of the Cypriot, Croatian, Greek, and Slovak drivers interviewed were of the opinion that a seat-belt is not really necessary at all, provided that one drives carefully.
      The Finns do not apparently fall for this one. Only 5% of those interviewed (the lowest figure of all countries) took this view, in the company of Danes, Germans, and Austrians.
     
Having already demonstrated their readiness to obey the laws of the road, the Finnish respondents were predictably also in favour of camera surveillance in traffic.
      Speed cameras were accepted by 83% of respondents, while cameras at traffic lights got the thumbs-up from as many as 91% of the Finnish drivers polled.
      The Swedes, who in all fairness already have an admirably low attrition rate from accidents on the roads, take a very dim view of the increased use of camera surveillance in traffic. Only one in two of those asked wished to see more cameras monitoring speed limits or for running red lights.
      The same negative feelings towards automatic traffic surveillance measures are also found in Switzerland, Spain, and Germany.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 18.12.2004

More on this subject:
 Holding a mirror up to the nation

Links:
  SARTRE
  SARTRE 3 (most recent study, contains tables)
  Proportion of drivers in each country thinking their own driving is less dangerous than that of other drivers (Figure 5)

JUHA SALONEN / Helsingin Sanomat
juha.salonen@hs.fi