A great many of the vehicles that young people between the ages of 16 and 18 drive today are not allowed to drive at more than 45 km/h. A limit several shake their heads off. – It is completely meaningless. And dangerous for traffic, says a father in Alta, who wishes to remain anonymous. news has spoken to several parents who believe that driving at 45 km/h slows down traffic and creates dangerous overtaking. Figures from the Information Council for Road Traffic show that there are close to 130,000 mopeds and 90,000 ATVs/UTVs registered in Norway. There are 5,446 mopeds, while the figure for light motorcycles is roughly 33,000. To avoid this, several parents allow the youngsters to tune the vehicles, so that they get a higher speed. In some cases, they help the children with the work. The father news has spoken to admits that he has helped his son adjust the moped so that it reaches just over 60 km/h. – But it must not go any further either. It is not designed to withstand a crash at high speed, he says. – Deliberately breaking the law With the exception of light motorcycles, young people under the age of 18 are not allowed to drive more than 45 km/h on their vehicles. – It should have been 60. When we drive at 45 km/h, there are long queues behind us and often dangerous overtaking, says 16-year-old Daniel Bakken Johansen. Daniel Bakken Johansen and Dennis Pedersen believe that most young people in Alta fix their vehicles so that they go faster than 45 km/h. Photo: Hanne Larsen / news Jan Petter Wigum at Nord University leads a newly started research project that will look at the use of ATVs in four regions in Norway. Troms and Finnmark, Trøndelag, Rogaland and Agder. The project manager has recently been to Troms and Finnmark, where he has had ten focus interviews with parents and young people in Alta. – What we see is that many parents knowingly and willfully break the law, by allowing the trimming of the vehicles, says Wigum. At the same time, he says that some parents probably have no idea what is going on, and that some may not understand that it is possible to adjust the speed up. Warns parents – This is doing the children a disservice and in the worst case can end up with compensation in the millions, says Sigmund Clementz, head of communications at If. Communications manager Sigmund Clementz at the insurance company If strongly warns parents not to let their children trim their vehicles. Photo: Press photo He says that when you enter into an agreement with the insurance company, it states which vehicle it is registered as. – If you change the characteristics of the vehicle, you break the agreement you have with the insurance company. Then you could risk getting paid less or having to pay the insurance company, he says. The latter can happen if you run over and injure a person for life, and where this person receives a million payout from the insurance company. – You can then be charged so-called recourse – repayment – for all or part of this compensation. In the worst case, we are talking about millions. And that is a bad start to adulthood for a young person, says Clementz. He cannot quantify how many such cases they have, but confirms that the cases appear at regular intervals. The father news has spoken to is considered when we present Clementz’s arguments. – I haven’t thought about this carefully. That means you have to consider whether it’s worth it, he says. Inherit attitudes – I don’t understand that parents take this risk, says traffic coordinator at the South-East police district, Henning Ødegaard Johansen. South-East police district, Henning Ødegaard Johansen., believes that trimming vehicles are attitudes that have been passed down. Photo: Herman Omland / news He confirms that trimming vehicles is widespread in parts of their district. Trimming mopeds in the Greenland area in particular is common, he says. – It’s sort of a tradition that you buy a moped, you also trim it. We have taken mopeds to over 100 km/h, says Johansen. He believes this is an attitude that is inherited, because the fathers themselves have trimmed their vehicles when they were young, and it has also become accepted to do so. – This is probably a bit cultural. I asked a boy what he had done, but he didn’t know, because it was his father who had done it, says Johansen. He says that the parents in question are otherwise law-abiding citizens, who have zero tolerance for other types of offences. – But precisely in this area, they believe that it is okay to break the law. It is very strange, says Johansen. Welcomes the debate Svein Tore Nilsen in the Finnmark police district confirms that trimming vehicles has a long tradition in Alta. Although he does not encourage breaking the law, he can understand that some people are surprised that the limit is set at 45 km/h. – It may well be that in some places in the world it is appropriate to drive at 45, but it is not certain that it is appropriate everywhere, he says. Svein Tore Nilsen at the police in Finnmark welcomes a wider debate around the vehicles for young people. Photo: Hanne Larsen / news The policeman welcomes a debate on regulations, speed limits and, not least, training. – Today it is a hodgepodge, which it is not easy for anyone to keep up to date with, he says. Denied his daughter the moped tag Parliamentary representative for FRP Bengt Rune Strifeldt from Alta and stands behind those who believe the limit of 45 km/h is too low. Storting representative for the Frp, Bengt Rune Strifeldt, believes that Norway should make its own law and not follow the EU in this matter. Photo: Presse He himself refused his daughter to drive up to the moped patch, but made her take the light bike patch instead. – It was because I didn’t want her to be lying at 40 km/h up the long hill along the E6 on the way to school, says Strifeldt. – But I wish the regulations made it possible for her to instead drive a moped that gets 60 km/h. Instead of it being a vehicle that travels at 120 km/h, he says. Strifeldt will raise the matter before the Storting. Risk of injuries Roar Olsen in the Norwegian Public Roads Administration reminds us that the restrictions in relation to speed are set there for a reason. He refers to the ATV which is an open vehicle, with little or no protection. – In addition, an ATV has driving characteristics that make it easier to overturn. This means that both the accident potential and the potential for damage are high, says Olsen. This, in combination with the young people’s lack of experience in traffic, means that Olsen believes the limit of 45 km/h is absolutely right. EU rules State Secretary Mette Gundersen from the Labor Party believes that Norway cannot deviate from EU rules on this point. Photo: Ministry of Transport Mette Gundersen, state secretary in the Ministry of Transport, knows the discussion well from several places in the country. But she points out that the limit of 45 km/h is an EU directive, which Norway must follow. – This directive does not allow special Norwegian rules that deviate from this requirement, says Gundersen. Bengt Rune Strifeldt in the Frp, disagrees. – We believe that this is an EU regulation and not a directive and that the agreement can therefore be terminated. I think we can create our own system for this in Norway. So I will check that and try to get it changed, says Strifeldt. Another father news has spoken to would like the legislation to be changed. – It would have been nice. So you didn’t have to make yourself a lawbreaker, when you really just want to make it safer for the boy to travel in traffic, he says.
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Parents let young people tune their vehicles because they think the speed limit is too low – news Troms and Finnmark
