Visiting R 100 13
This post is part of a bigger trip I made through Scandinavia with focus on Norway.
Ok, I need to admit, this is not exactly a visit, it is really more about an experience. Sometimes we just assume things work similar to how we know it in other countries, until they don’t. One example is how to do the corridor for emergency vehicle access properly.
In Germany, when there is a traffic jam on a highway, those on the left lane would go to the far left, those on the right lane would go to the far right. The corridor would be in the middle.
When a traffic jam started on my trip I thought it would work the same way. I was on the left lane and I continued to stay there to the far left just to see that all of those in front of me started to go to the right. My mind needed some seconds to process that and by then the lane on the right was pretty much filled up and I fit in with just half of my van.
Now, most of the time when being in a traffic jam this corridor is not used. Of course, here, with me half still on the left lane, a police car came from behind and couldn’t pass. Earth please open up so I can disappear. Fortunately, the car in front of me finally pulled up a meter more and I could squeeze my way onto the right lane enough for the police car to drive by.
I checked afterwards and couldn’t find any description on how to do this corridor officially in Sweden. This experience showed me again that even though things like traffic signs and signals, etc. look very familiar there can be still different rules on how to do something. I was just happy that I didn’t fully block the road during an emergency.