Svenskar på Irland del V

Solobad, typiskt "gräset är alltid grönare på andra sidan"-syndrom... det är alltid något man saknar. Vi vill också vara på båda ställena. Fast med sommarhuset i Sverige.

Som du säger så passar inte alla på irland likväl som inte alla passar i Sverige. Tack och lov är ju inte alla människor lika. Sen har man ju så olika förutsättningar också, med jobb och så. Det är en av anledningarna till att vi vill tillbaka till Irland, vi ser bättre möjligheter där. Man får ta det onda med det goda var man än hamnar till slut.

Tack för tipset om cuidu. Det ska jag kolla upp.

Lilith74, jag menade inte det på det sättet. Alltså att du inte passar in, eller att bara för att någon inte trivs i ett land eller kan se de negativa sidorna av ett land passar de inte in. Jag menade bara att alla är olika och kan leva på olika sätt. Det var inte meningen att irritera dig. Jag inser att vad jag menade inte var speciellt klart uttryckt. Så jag ber om ursäkt.
Jag kan också se att inom vissa områden är Irland fortfarande baklänges. Men jag hoppas att landet ska fortsätta utvecklas och jag vill vara en del av det. Kanske är jag naiv, men jag tror att det kan bli bra.

Jag har nu förbjudit min sambo från att närvara på detta forum för han kan inte sluta argumentera. Han har en oförmåga att se andra personers sidor av saker och ting ibland. Så jag hoppas att det är ok Lilith74. Jag har argumenterat för din sak här hemma, så jag tänker lämna det så nu.

Irrajks sambo: Irrajks is gone to collect the kids, so I've hijacked her account. I don't believe you when you say a second incident happened where a driver ran you into the middle of the road and all you did was ask him what the problem was. The chances of something like that happening to anyone are just too slim, I think you are spoofing, reading too many tabloids? Also anyone who actually experienced something like this for real, would be so outraged they would call the police, or even when they returned home SOMEONE would decide to call the police. I'm not going to get into a slagging match with you about drivers from either Country, Ireland does have a high mortality rate compared with Sweden, but our road infrastructure is not as well developed as Sweden's. Furthermore, Swedish peoples attitude towards drinking and driving is much different to people from Ireland, Irish people will take a chance and drive with drink taken, most Swedes would not even dream of it. At ground level though, with drink and road infrastructure out of the equation, Swedish drivers are just as bad if not worse than any Irish driver. I have been driving for 20 years and I've never seen such poor driving as I've seen in Sweden. Swedes do not stop for pedestrians, even when there is a zebra crossing, Swedes tail gate all then time, Swedes dangerously overtake all the time, my points are based on my observations while driving around Sweden. I know a lot of Irish drivers overtake aggressively, and drive like morons, but normal Irish people don NOT use their cars as weapons. Also, ask any Garda what they thought of your incidents, most likely reply would be assurance that they would have attempted to apprehend the rogue driver, with or without a registration. Don't forget cars come is various colours, sizes, makes and models, even a description would be enough for a Garda patrol car to stop and question a suspect, the Garda would know if the person was lying. Big trucks have logos on the side, are normally traveling slowly on a set route and don't just disappear into thin air, so to not call the Garda is simple mindedness in the extreme.

Here we go, proof that Swedes can't take critisism about Sweden from outsiders. Nowhere in my post do I say that ALL Irish drivers are perfect, I know full well that there are morons driving in Ireland, read my last post again properly and you will see that. Furthermore I am not making any excuses for Irish people, I failed my driving test in Ireland first time because I was inexperienced driving cars at the time ( though I had been driving Motorcycles for many years before that ). I thought I did well, but the tester was not satisfied. My parents were both tested in Ireland and drive about 300km per week and drive very well, without running people over or any such tripe. I admit that there was issues with the Irish driving license system and how it has been implemented in the past, but the Government and the IRSA are currently revising that. I don't know why you are lying about this, nor do I care, in my opinion some people just choose to exagerate the truth. I don't believe you because it doesn't make sense to me... you are saying; you were driving along the road, your car was struck by a lorry and you did nothing? Then on another occasion a driver pushed you into the middle of a road from a side road using his car and again you did nothing? I asked a reserved, quiet Swedish lady in her 40s, who I would imagine would be easily shocked in such a scenario, what she would do in this case. She imediately said she would dial 999, you did't, why not? I really didn't want to get into this with you, but what the hey... If Irish drivers are unable to drive on Motorways, how come, for the last three years, I can trapes up and down the E4 to Stockholm almost weekly without ever being involved in an accident? I have driven in other parts of Europe on Motorways eg. Germany, Holland, Denmark and UK. I will admit that I got a speeding fine in Denmark, just outside Koge, but I paid the fine and that was it. I know several Irish people who have driven all over Europe and USA without any problem using the Motorways. I do break the speed limit, in Ireland and other countries while on the Motorway, but I don't ram my car into slower drivers, nobody does that, you'd be insane to do something so retarded. I like Sweden, it's great fun, it is an amazing, and it has great Motocross, but I noticed since I first got here that many drivers are shite. Almost daily since getting here I see pedestrian in fear of being run over by thoughtless Swedes hurrying along to Ikea in their SAABs and Volvo's, it's a fact plain and simple.

Jag kommer från Irland du kan skriva på engelska till mig, tack!

My Swedish comment was to the person who asked why we were posting in English, the comment was not for you.

Okay, I actually thought it was you who made your comments further back in the thread about the lorry incident. My Swedish is not very good and I did not put a name with the post, just saw red... I still retain my opinion on the other incident you mentioned, if someone ran your car into the middle of the road, why didn't you call the police?

So I'm 37 years of age, there are probably hundreds of thousands of Irish men and women in my age group that hold full Irish driving licenses and you are telling me that in your opinion none of them can drive on a Motorway? I can tell you that notion is preposterous - get a grip on yourself woman!

I was driving on the main Kalmar to Halmstad motorway yesterday and what was there rolling along the hard shoulder at about 30km/h? Yes a big stupid looking tractor!

I'm starting to think that this discussion is getting too Childish for my liking, tit for tat and all that rubbish, boo.

I would like to retract my statement that ALL Swedish drivers are shite, that is not true, I have many Swedish friends that I have great respect for and it would be an insult to them to " tar them with the one brush ". I have observed some of the most selfish arrogance/ignorance from Swedish drivers, for example, there is a pedestrian crossing on a road between a Hospital out patient department and a train station near where I live. On Friday I was third in line approching the crossing when a frail old dear stepped onto the kirb, niether driver in front of me stopped for the woman depite the fact that she was ready to cross when the first car was over 100 meters away. When I stopped, I had to signal to her with my hand it was ok to cross, she had a look of fear in her eyes, I've witness this type of scenario almost daily in Sweden. I look at some Swedish papers and news reports and every time I do there is some major crash going on, some paediofile doing evil crap to a child, some priest brain washing the community into thinking that Homosexuality is the work of the devil, based on this I could make all sorts of claims about Sweden on a " Irish fathers abroad " discussion forum. But that would be very simple minded of me, these things happen all over the world, unfortunately, but I would just be insulting the millions of Swedes out there that are cool, nice folks!

Also,if Ireland is such a shite place for you, why don't you return to Sweden. Over the years I've lived in some countries I didn't like, so I left.

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!

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 ".

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.

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!