Eight Things about Driving in Finland

So as I am learning how to drive properly here in Finland, there are some things that I have been finding a little bit difficult to ease into considering how the driving is in the States. I figured I would share some of these for anyone wanting to learn a little bit about the roads here and what it is like for someone so used to one way and having to relearn it almost completely. The basic stuff you learn in the States like how to read speed limits and road signs, red means stop, green means go and yellow means speed up (just kidding!) and yes, Finland drives on the right side of the road like the States do.

So what is different? 

1. One thing I am currently having difficulties in remembering, no matter what time of day, and no matter what the weather is like, you always have to have your headlights on. I am having such a hard time with this one because I have to remember to turn on my lights manually and when it is daylight I always forget. Luckily, usually the first car you pass is kind enough to remind you that they are not on so that police do not stop you.

2. There are walkways everywhere! And unlike the States where people have to wait for cars to pass, if there is no walking light, people do not have to yield to cars. The moment they step on the walkway you immediately have to slow down and stop and wait for them to pass. I am used to this in the States doing this only if you have a red light and they have their walk light, but this is everywhere. Bicycles depend on signs however telling you if you need to yield to them or not even when they use the same paths. As a pedestrian I had to get used to this rule because there would be times walking by myself here that I would go to the road and wait for cars to pass, whereas they would slow down and even stop waiting for me to cross the road even if I was not on the road itself.

3. When driving here you just have know what you are doing and who yields to who. There is this law that I am still learning which is, unless it is driveways and parking lots, and if the other person has a yield sign, you always give way to anyone coming from the right when in towns and cities. The thing that always gets me screwed up is that I am still so used to having stop signs everywhere, whereas here there are only a handful and only in the busiest places. Otherwise they only have yield signs. My husband actually just took me through town and as I was driving he had me identify which openings I had to yield to if someone was there, so I am starting to understand it but still. Very different from a place where you have stop signs everywhere and mostly go in the order of who stopped first.

4. Something that is not that different from the States, at least certain areas, are roundabouts. They are really everywhere here! They are used on the ramps to go on and off from the motorways, and even for the bigger intersections. This is something I am starting to like but only when it is not too crowded. Otherwise for a beginner it can be overwhelming because again, there are no stop signs, and you just go with the flow and just know what you are doing and where you are going.

5. Something else that is just different is the fact that here, each car has two sets of tires, ones for winter and ones for summer. The summer ones look like what we are used to in the States but the winter ones are studded, to help when the roads ice up and there is snow. It does not make much difference driving wise but just something I thought was interesting since up till now I only had to worry about one set of tires.

6. Emissions tests are a lot more strict here too. When my husband had visited the States he had told me he could not believe the condition of some cars here and that they were still legal to drive. The emissions here is not just plugging into the computer and making sure all codes are clear, they look at everything! No rust is allowed on the vehicles and if they take a rod and tap it and rust comes out of the rod goes through it is an automatic fail. I guess it is nice in a way that they are so strict because then the cars here are kept in much better state and last longer. When I got my car recently I was very suprised at the condition it was in considering it was 2 years older than my old car that was, as it turned out when I moved here, complete garbage.

7. Another difference I found that seems to make more sense and I wish that the States could implement this because I feel it would save so much time when getting a different car. The license plates always follow the car, not the driver. The plates are registered to the car itself, which makes it so much easier when transferring ownership because it is just done in a few easy steps, no DMV required. It also helps when tracking the car and the services/repairs it has had done over the years, previous owners and such.

8. Speed limits are a little funny to me here too I have to say. I am getting quite used to them but when I first started driving it felt like that limits set for the towns were slower than in the States, the country roads and village roads are faster, and the highways much faster. The motorways were probably the same as the interstates, in the U.S. but still. The other factor in the learning these limits and getting comfortable is that they are not in mph here, but in kmph so instead of going 55 you are going 80 and when you are going 30mph it is actually 50kmph, so that can definitly mess with a person's head who would never go faster that 55 on average and now the average is 80.


As I continue to drive and continue to learn the rules of the road I will probably find more differences. I am happy to say for the majority it is not so different than driving in the States but of course it is the little things that can make the difference.