HS test: Volkswagens most likely to break speed limits
Company cars also rank high among speed demons
|
|
|
By Paavo Tukkimäki
A speed test conducted by Helsingin Sanomat on the highways of the south of Finland showed that drivers of Volkswagens were in the biggest hurry to get wherever they were going.
Mercedes-Benz’s, and vehicles provided by employers as company cars also ranked high on the list of speeders, although it might be assumed that both types are more common in the south of the country than elsewhere.
There were more than 50 per cent more Volkswagens breaking the speed limit in the traffic flow during the weekend than the next most frequent type - Fords. The number of VWs in among speeders exceeded the proportional share of the brand among all cars in use in Finland.
Mercedes drivers ranked high among Finish speed demons - both with respect to overall quantity, and especially in proportion to their total number in the vehicle registry: more than twice as many of them drove past the test car, which kept to the speed limits, than their share of the vehicle mix would give reason to assume.
In the experiment, the test car was driven during Friday afternoon rush hour traffic from Helsinki to Jyväskylä. The return trip to Helsinki took place from Mikkeli via Lahti on Sunday afternoon.
In addition to taking down the models driven by the overtakers, the test revealed that the claim that "when I drive according to the speed limit, everyone zooms past", was not true on two-lane highways, even though they have an exceptionally large number of separate passing lanes.
Only 23 cars drove past the test car while en route from Tampere to Jyväskylä, and a third of them did so on the motorway approaching Jyväskylä.
The Sunday southbound traffic from Mikkeli was occasionally one long line; on straight segments cars could be seen in the rear-view mirror as far as the eye could see.
In spite of the passing lanes on Highway 5, the line remained fairly well intact, right behind the test car which drove at the speed limit; only three passed the car from Mikkeli to Lusi.
On motorways excessive speed was more common, although passing was mostly "clean", as was the case in the previous Helsingin Sanomat speed test last Easter week. At that time, 61 cars passed the test car over a distance of 1,834 kilometres, and most of these took place on a motorway.
A total of 2,370 kilometres were driven during the two tests, and 315 cars were seen violating the speed limits. A total of 262 licence numbers were recorded, of which 38 - nearly 15 per cent - were registered as company cars in the records of the Finnish Vehicle Administration (AKE).
AKE calculated that at the end of September there were about 239,000 company cars in Finland - a 9.4 per cent share of Finland’s 2.54 million cars. This means that cars owned by the driver’s employer were more than twice as likely to exceed the speed limit than could be expected on the basis of their total number.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 18.10.2007
PAAVO TUKKIMÄKI / Helsingin Sanomat
paavo.tukkimaki@hs.fi
