"Mopedcars"

Last week a moped car ( a lightweight, fourwheel vehicle that looks like a car but goes only 45 km/h) crashed with an ambulance on an emergency. Two were killed.

Car drivers seem to be annoyed with such imposters and complain about their lack of training, running red lights etc. Pretty much the same complaints they have with mopeds and cyclists ( and pedestrians, too).

The police put a comment on their web page about microcars and their accidents. The insurance claims for accidents for microcars are 1 per ten vehicles, cars are 1 per 42 cars and mopeds 1 per 50. So the moped cars are four or five times more often in accidents that cars. Injury rates for microcars are about the same, both are two or three times worse than people in cars. The cars have a better steel cage. :-/

Microcar accidents are often at intersections or rearendings. Both are symptoms of lack of experience on the part of the driver (mostly teenagers). Also because most moped cars are in cities which have intersections and other cars to rear end with.

And more often than not the driver is at fault. Before only a theory test was needed to get a drivers license for a microcar. The regulations have been tightened and now there's also a driving exam which should help a little.

Summer Schedule

You'll find there will be less updates during the summer. I''ve decided to limit my time on the computer in the summer and I'm out there enjoying the sun and warm weather while they last. Including riding a bike at midnight.

The Midsummer Day is a few days and as some people already say the summer is almost over after that and the winter is coming back. Not everyone wants to hear that before they even have had their summer holidays in June. :-) Although it's true!

Right now there's lots of flowers and trees in blossom like the rowan in the photo. Smells nice too!

Enjoy your summer, folks!

Riding in the noise

Another boring video clip to keep you entertained. This one is from a ride from a few weeks back, when the grass was still brown. The chunks of ice in the underpasses had melted though, so it must have been May.

It may look like  it but this is not out of the city, but it certainly is out of the downtown grid streets. Maybe it'd be the suburbs then. Noisy motorway is not a nice thing to live next to, so very often there's a noise wall or some woods to give some protection. Maybe I should've included a clip from the non-short-cut route to see if the noise levels are noticeably lower.