Svenskar på Irland del V

I still can't accept that either! All the years I've been driving around Ireland on Motorcycles ( probably the most vulnerable road users ) and I have seen very few people actually unable to merge into motorway traffic. I would consider myself an expert motorcyclist and I've learned to anticipate car drivers inability to see motorcycles near their cars while in traffic of any type ( city, motorway etc. ). I do this to keep myself safe. Should Swedish drivers not adopt a similar attitude when driving in Ireland? Also, of my many many friends and family in Ireland who drive, very few have caused major accidents. Sadly many deaths occur from road accidents in Ireland, it really breaks my heart every time I read these reports and envissage the poor old dears and old lads throughout my country, heart broken at the loss of their bueatiful sons and daughters. Should I lash out at my fellow country men and women and say that the system is shite and all of you can't drive? No, that would be very cold, the Irish Government, the Gardai and people are working hard to put a stop to the carnage on our roads. Some ideas have even been borrowed from väg-och transportforskningsinstitut, this brings me back to my infrastructure argument earlier, in the 1970s and 1980s Ireland was almost Bankrupt, no money was invested in roads and only a limited amount was invested into road safety, only recently our Government has begun developing the road infrastructure in Ireland. Over time, mark my words, the accident rate will decline, please god, and we'll get back to enjoying our great green Isle, Eire. Go n'éirí an t-ádh leat!

irrajks sambo,
As I said in my correction, it shouldn't be "in general" so there are some Irish drivers that actually can drive...

And if our discussion is a little bit too childish for you, feel free to leave it. Your attitude isn't the best either so...no loss.

FYI, I am irrajk's sambo, I am Irish and I currently live in Sweden. I don't have an account on this forum and I decided to post here to make some points about Ireland that I think are being overlooked by you lot.

No, not leaving yet, I won't tolerate misinformation and bitchy remarks about my country. Especially not from norrow minded Swedes, full of their own self importance, patting themselves on the back with fantastic statistics about road fatalities in Sweden. These losses are also heart breaking for me, is there not something cold about your attitude " we're great, only a few hundred of our citizens were killed compared with this or that "? It just doen't cut it with me, statistics are just numbers, there are still fatal accidents in Sweden, I would keep my mouth shut and accept your remarks if there were 0 fatal accedents in Sweden. Remove your 2 plus 1 road infrastructure and you would probably double that figure for annual road fatalities. It reminds me of a comment my Grandmother used to make, " the pot calling the kettle black ".

oooh I see you are two people using same nick....or you r usin your wifes.

So you DO have to get a full licens and get a good training before you drive in Ireland? I´m not making these things up for fun, maby that´s why it´s like this here because you wont face the facts. It is a big problem here......why are you attacking the swedish people? We have said nothing bad about Irish.... only that the attitude to driving has to change...it is accepeted here to drive whitout a driverslicens and to have a good few pints before driveing here, and do you think that a good thing, do you not think it has to change? I have been drivin here for 5 years and been stopped once for a tax and insuans check, and I have never seen a alkoholcheck.... there is a whole lot more to be done. Even the Irish goverment says so..

I only put the numbers in my comment to show you that yes Ireland is strugelin with traffic issues. I know that there is things to be done in sweden to, the swedish would have a different attitude to driving when it comes to a good education in how to drive, drinking and driving, seatbelts, good seats for children and so on. And you have a typical irish mind.

I agree with education as the key. I remember as a child jumping around the back of the car with no seatbelt on while driving along the roads, we were very lucky never to have been in an accident. I can't blame my parents generation either, they were not aware of the serious dangers of driving with children not strapped into the car. Swedish industry has for many years focused on safety in the manufacture of cars and learned a lot from performing simulated accidents. Unfortunately Ireland hasn't always had a strong economy and people were forced to buy cheaper Japanese cars that would fall apart in an accident, so somewhere we missed out on the concept of enforcing child protection in cars.

I can't blame the Irish license laws either, but I think it needs to be revised. You have to remember that when these laws were implemented there were only a fraction of cars on the road as there are today. I think as a nation we are very good at implementing high standards, but we are currently behind the rest of the EU with our licensing and driving laws, but I think in the next term of office the Government will get the bull by the horns on these issues.

My personal experiences are different however. I drove Motorcycles without a license, at the time I never thought that I was doing anything wrong, my parent did not know about it. I kept the bike away from my home and lied to them. The police arrested me and sent me to court, the judge was fair, if a little lenient, but what was the man to do? How could a judge imprison a foolish young kid for making a mistake?

I learned the " don't drink and drive " message the hard way, I once hopped on my bike after drinking and thought I was Randy Momola and crashed hard because I was overly ambitious with the throttle. I'll never forget the pain of the doctor picking bits of gravel out of my knee and elbow. But even after that I knew people getting into cars and driving with drink taken, I never passed any remarks. Now I have a different attitude, I would try to stop someone from doing it now, if they didn't listen to me I could no longer consider the person a friend. I guess the main reason to change my mind was becoming a father, I could bear loosing my children because some fool couldn't take a bus or taxi!

I can also say that I've had some influence from Swedes towards drinking and driving, Swedes consider drinking and driving to be a disgrace and perhaps it has rubbed off onto me.

You should be proud that an Irish man living in your country has been so positively influenced by your nation. Sweden is not perfect utopia some would like to believe, it has its share of social issues too. And of course would it not be better to educate my fellow Irish men and women about your high safety standards in Sweden in a more positive way than just saying ? it's a disaster ?. Isn't positive encouragement better than negative criticism? Just look at the gripes going here between myself and others over negative attitudes!

I am sorry for being rude earlier, the current road fatality issue in Ireland is a very sensitive issue for me, I can feel for the families of victims, as you may be aware we are a very compassionate nation. I am confident in our Government and my people that we will get the accident issue under control and make it a thing of the past, perhaps we will set the standard for the EU in the future.

hi agin, you´r right no way sweden is the greater place to be at all times. Even myself(after living away from my contry) can se that the swedes can be a bit ignorant and loving them self a bit to much somtimes. My boyfriend whos a kiwi thinks that ve are way to serious about things, and he´s right. Life is way much more easy going over here wich is a great thing, there is NO stress. And thats something we have to learn from you guys.... the swedes needs to take a chill pill...

Please tell me more what you think about sweden and the swedes good and bad, I´m a bit nervous how my kiwi man is going to cope with it all...did u have a hard time finding a job in swe?

It is a hard question to answer, I've seen such contrasting attitudes here in Sweden, good and bad. Probably the worst thing I thought about Sweden was the socialist mentality of many people. I mean these people would preach to me how fantastic Sweden is compared with the rest of the world, " we have the best social security on the planet ", but at the same time I felt that the Swedish system was discriminating against me. When I first came I went looking for jobs, most reply was " learn how to speak Swedish '. I went to the local Swedish for immigrants school and they told me I'd be at the class from 8am to 16pm, in this scenario you have no income, so I went to the social welfare and they were not easily going to give me a penny, the attitude was almost as if I had asked a complete stranger for a loan of 1000Euro, the woman made me feel as if it was personal. So I didn't get to the Swedish for immigrants school, I borrowed money from my bank and started working for myself. As you may see from my comments in my previous posts that I am a supporter of the Irish PDs, and I believe in Equality of opportunity, I feel that I was not treated equally in my pursuits for business in Sweden. Many Swedish companies dismissed me with the attitude " your not Swedish, you can't start working as a computer consultant, Swedes only deal with Swedish Aktiebolag that have been established for years in Sweden ". Fortunately there are businesses in Sweden without this narrow minded attitude and funnily enough it turned out that these companies I eventually found myself working for were actually the most prominent Swedish companies in the world telecoms sector. These people soon recognised my willingness to work very hard and I have been working with them constantly for 2 years now.

For approximately six or seven months now I've been involved with sport in Sweden. I have a keen interest in Motorcycles since I was a child and joined a local Motor Klubb, here I discovered a huge contrast to my experiences in business related world. In sport Swedes are very competitive, but also very professional and very willing to share training techniques with anyone who is interested. I have met people that I have the greatest respect for in Swedish Motocross, people who have an amazingly positive attitude towards life and who have had a very positive influence on me and my partner.

I have observed loads of negative points about Swedish society since I came here, here you have media outlets sensationalising peoples misfortunes just as they do in Ireland. If I allow myself to become consumed by these issues I would eventually be unable to walk down the street in Sweden and end up very depressed, with the attitude we've seen here throughout this thread " all Irish drivers are crap ". My advise to anyone coming to Sweden would be keep a positive frame of mind and you'll have a great time, it is a wonderful place. I will always love Sweden, but no amount of positive thinking will ever help me get over my HATRED of the Swedish winter, my god it goes on for ever... I hate snow!

An additional point I think is worth mentioning; I've lived in Sweden, UK, Belgium, Holland and Germany and I think by far Sweden has been the best so far. Swedes have a great sense of humour and are not violent in anyway. The few Kiwi's I've met over the years have always had a great sense of humour too, I would recommend that your Kiwi male friend buy " Xenophobe's guide to the Swedes " before embarking on his journey! Here is a quote from the section about immigrants: " In the last 100 years Sweden has gone from being a country of emigrants to becoming a haven for immigrants. The drab warp of the ethnic fabric has been iextricably blended with more exotic weft from the farthest corners of the globe. One inhabitant in eight is either a naturalised foreigner or a refugee.
There are inevitale cranks who complain that the immigrants take all the good jobs and the best apartments, but most Swedish citizens show a degree of tolerance towards newcomers. One reason for this is that Swedish supermarkets and restaurants have been compelled to widen the food selection beyond gruel and fermented herring. Another reason os that the incomers provide folklore entertainment previously only available on expensive charter trips.
The immigrants enjoy complainig about Sweden - its climate, taxes and indigenous population - and say they can hardly wait to leave. The Swedes find this attitude coming from foreigners rather uncharitable. But when the Swedes themselves voice exactly the same complaints, everyone nods in full agreement."