According to the National Traffic Police, the motorway between Kotka and Hamina would be a suitable parking lot for the trucks queuing in Southeastern Finland to cross over to Russia at the Vaalimaa border-crossing.
In the future, when a line of trucks on Highway 7 is stretching back until some 25 kilometres from the border, the police would start diverting the arriving trucks to the motorway west of Hamina.
At that point the speed limit would be reduced temporarily to 60 km/h, and as many vehicles would be allowed to continue their journey as have been allowed to cross the border.
Superintendent Pekka Nevala of the Southern Finland section of Finland's National Traffic Police regards a motorway with two lanes and a wide hard-shoulder as a fairly safe alternative as a parking area.
The arrangement would keep the queuing trucks away from the centre of Hamina, where the backlog of heavy goods vehicles has been hampering even the emergency services traffic.
On the other hand, the police have just a limited number of ways to intervene in the problems caused by the lines of trucks. In fact, Nevala expressed surprise at the low number of accidents that have occurred when set against the growth of traffic and the lines of trucks in recent years.
The heavy goods traffic is growing in Southeastern Finland more rapidly than in other parts of the country because of the economic growth of Russia.
Actually the truck traffic has increased by nearly six per cent over the past 12 months, even though the blizzard a couple of weeks ago reduced the traffic by some five per cent in the Southeastern region of the Finnish Road Administration.
The backlog of trucks is expected to get worse towards the end of the year - just before the Russians' year-end festivals.
Minister of Transport and Communications Susanna Huovinen (SDP) is to look at the excessively long lines of heavy goods vehicles in Virolahti on Friday.
