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Video: Road safety film from Norway asks drivers, would you act so aggresively elsewhere?

Public information spot aims to encourage motorists to share space with cyclists

Remember the road safety video from Norway we posted last year featuring former world champion Thor Hushovd? Well, here’s another one from the Scandinavian country, this one not featuring a star cyclist but instead a motorist who takes his aggressive behaviour into the supermarket as he pushes his trolley around, mobile phone glued to his ear.

The message from the video, produced for Norway’s transport ministry, is that you share space with people elsewhere, so it should be no different if you’re behind the wheel of a car and sharing space with cyclists – thanks to road.cc user Chris Whitehouse for spotting it.

If you missed the Hushovd video, which mixes examples of bad driving with bad cycling, here it is again.

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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9 comments

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Paul_C | 9 years ago
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the problem is I've actually encountered shoppers who shove their trolleys around like this...

just wonder how their driving is...  2

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usedtobefaster | 9 years ago
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I've spent a week in Norway on holiday and it's how a country should be run. Great place but very expensive as a tourist.

Of course they had the insight to view the discovery of North Sea oil as a national asset and not allow it to be passed over into private hands, so they can afford to run a very pleasant socially aware community. I believe the countries investment fund is the biggest in the world and it's owned by the people.

The problem with Norway is for half the year most of it's in near darkness with snowy and ice roads which isn't so good for getting the training miles in - makes you wonder how Thor and EBH have got to the prop ranks at all !!

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oozaveared replied to usedtobefaster | 9 years ago
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usedtobefaster wrote:

I've spent a week in Norway on holiday and it's how a country should be run. Great place but very expensive as a tourist.

Of course they had the insight to view the discovery of North Sea oil as a national asset and not allow it to be passed over into private hands, so they can afford to run a very pleasant socially aware community. I believe the countries investment fund is the biggest in the world and it's owned by the people.

Blimey where to start.

Norway uses a licensing system the same way that we do. Private companies with real expertise find and get the oil and gas out of the North sea. Yes Statoil is state owned but only when Norway realised it had oil and gas. British Oil companies were set up to supply Britain with oil and gas way before we discovered North Sea oil. BP was founded as Anglo Persian in 1909. It's a little trickier to nationalise a company that has been trading for 60 odd years and has assets and investors, contracts, and drilling rights and collaborations around the world than it is to just set up a brand new state oil company to exploit reserves on your own soverign territory.

That Norway invested the money in a sovereign wealth fund is to their credit. Very wise. But one of the very important reasons behind that is the fact that Norway is almost too dependent on oil and gas. It has used the sovereign fund to try to build up a hedge fund to counter that overdependency for when it runs out in a way that the UK has not had to and arguably doesn't need to.

And Norway is a very different country to the UK. It has a small very homogenous population. 5 million. It had a very basic industrial revolution again based on a few heavy industries but was mainly supported by agriculture and fisheries until the mid 20th century.

It doesn't have a large population with a legacy of a very industrialised urban centred diverse population.

You might have argued that the UK could have done the same with a sovereign fund. Unfortunately if the UK government had that kind of spare cash while not spending it on education, hospitals, increased benefits, or on tax cuts or defence there would be hell to pay politically.

So yes if you start with a small semi industrialised mainly rural population and you add oodles of petro cash quite quickly then you can have all sorts of goodies and spare cash to invest.

If you start with a large industrialised urban centred population undergoing de-industrialisation and you add the same amount of cash it doesn't go anywhere really.

Norway's GDP is around $500bn ($500,000,000)
population 5 million
Labour force 2.645m
45th largest economy in the world

UKs GDP is $2.5 Trillion (2,500,000,000,000)
population 63 million
Labour force 30.5 million
6th largest economy in the world

Can we please stop this nonsense of comparing ourselves with completely and utterly different countries in terms of scale and history and beating ourselves up about how well they are run. Yes we get it a nice new small specialised boutique with 5 employees is a lot easier to run and keep clean than a big older supermarket with lots of departments that keeps 63 people in a job.

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HarrogateSpa replied to oozaveared | 9 years ago
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Quote:

Blimey where to start.

Etc

You're entitled to your opinion, but I feel you're too dismissive of another person's comments here.

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OldRidgeback | 9 years ago
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It'd be good to run those on British TV - leave them as they are and run them with subtitles.

I've seen the examples of bad driving/cycling before. I love that roll over the bonnet of the old Citroen. I only ride clips on track myself.

The guy with the shopping trolley should have a BMW badge on it or be brandishing a set of BMW keys.

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giff77 | 9 years ago
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I love the road safety adds from our European cousins. Really clever and effective. A lot better than many of the Brit ones that as far as I'm concerned have the viewer thinking 'I don't behave that way and that'll never happen to me'

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giff77 | 9 years ago
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I love the road safety adds from our European cousins. Really clever and effective. A lot better than many of the Brit ones that as far as I'm concerned have the viewer thinking 'I don't behave that way and that'll never happen to me'

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Polmac | 9 years ago
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Woopa didddle edoo!

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Gkam84 | 9 years ago
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Genius.

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