Anyway, I?m going to write about traffic conditions in Sweden, where I am living right now, although I am going to return to England someday (I suppose....)
In Sweden, the roads and signage varies a lot depending where in Sweden you are driving. For example, motorway junctions have got names, not numbers, except in Halland (a province in the south of Sweden), where they have numbered junctions, likein many other European countries.
The motorway junctions is in southern Sweden arecalled "trafikplats", but in the northern Sweden they are called "mot "! (mot can in Swedish also mean "against")
In Sweden, there are four road classifications: Europav?g (European road). In Sweden, the european roads have since they were introduced in the 60s been a part of the national road system (like the rest of the nordic countries), so it?s nothing Brussels has forced on the Swedes. Nearly all of the Swedish motorway network are classified as Europav?gar, but the european roads can be9 meter broad 1*1 lanes, although you can always expect thatthere?re a good standard on the european roads.
Riksv?g (national road). These roads have very different standards. The ideal for the engineers when they build a new riksv?g is a 13 meter broad road , 1*1 lanes and wide shoulders, but the roads can be as narrow as 5 meters broad and some of the roads arereal motorways, with hard shoulders,2*2 lanes, separatedfrom slow trafficand all that.Riksv?garnaare numbered between 1-99. Surprisingly, there are no national roads no1-8, but the first road is number 9! These roads are often goingto biggermunicipalities with more than 10000 inhabitants.
L?nsv?g (provincial route). These roads are in general the same as riksv?garna, but l?nsv?garna are often smaller and sometimes not very well maintained. Theyare numered between 100-999.
And last one: There?s no name on this last road classification! These roads are oftengoing to small villages in rural areasand they can be surfaced or gravel roads. Sometimes these roadsaren?t very well maintained, especially in the northern part of the country,so it can be a real adventure driving on a Swedish road - you just don?t know if your head is going to be severed off your throat because of the bad surface!
These roads are numbered 1000-9999, but there are no signs telling you what road number it is, and not even the native people knows what numbers these small roads have, and the maps aren?t telling you either, so don?t waste your time looking for a road with a higher number than 1000.
Sweden has (I read it somewhere) 1100 km motorway, with 110km/h as speed limit (90 km/h in urban areas). It may sounds much when you calculate that Sweden has 8,9 million inhabitants and 1100 km motorway (UK has 3500 km motorway and about 55 million inhabitants) but Sweden is a big country, and the socialist/green(enviormental) government have stopped nearly all new road schemes, meaning that theproposed motorway triangle between Sweden?s third largest cities (Malm?, Gothenburg and Stockholm) that was supposed to be completed 2005, has now been halted and only some of the very highneeded projects is going to be built during the next 10 years. As it looks like today, many urban and some ruralroads are heaveliy congested, and it gets worse every year. Of the proposed motorway triangle, only the motorway between Gothenburg and Malm? is right nowcompleted, and as long as Swedenhas this anti-road government it will take a long time before it will be completed (as they?re spending the money today, this motorway triangle won?t be completed before 2020 - that?s too long time!) Right now this triangle is to 85 % completed, and the parts of this triangle thataren?t a motorway are crowded and congested - even in the rural areas.
Phew, that was all for tonight. If anyone has questions just ask me.
