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Driving in Sweden Travel Guide


Driving in Sweden Attractions & Activities - The Best Holiday Destinations for 2020

This article is a travel topic.

Driving around in Sweden takes you to places outside the big cities. This is a good way to travel if you are interested in seeing some countryside.

Roads

The European road network goes through Sweden and are the best and biggest road. The biggest ones are:

Most of the European roads are freeways.

There are the national roads (riksvägar) that have two digit numbers. They are the next best roads.

The three digit numbered roads (länsvägar) come in two flavors. The big ones (numbers 100-400) and really small ones (all other numbers).

The European roads and the national roads are very well marked with signs telling you what road you are on and how to get onto these roads. The three digit numbered roads with numbers up to 400 are also marked. Roads with lower numbers are situated south of the roads with higher numbers.

The small ones, and in some cases 4 digit roads that might show up on your GPS map are never marked with their numbers. They are just numbered for some administrative purpose and the numbers cannot be used while driving.

Finding Directions

The best markings are made with big blue signs with the name of the upcoming towns. If the road leading there is a freeway, the signs are green instead of blue. Unless you are going on a very big road, make your directions based on what towns or villages you are passing and keep an eye out for these signs instead of the road numbers.

Speed Limits

The current speed limit is very well marked by signs. The speed limit signs are in km/h. The signs you see are normally 30, 50, 70, 90 and 110. Recently, new speed limits have appeared, 40, 60, 80, 100 and 120. Two speed signs on each side of the road mean from this point this is the new speed. One sign on the right means that this is the speed on this road but there is no change in speed.

The standard speed for roads outside built-up areas is always 70 km/h unless otherwise indicated.

Since 2001 some new signs have been introduced or have been altered to also indicate the speed limit. These are:

With the adding of new speed limits in 2008 the signs mentioned above now follow these rules:

The respect for obeying the speed limit is rather poor. Often, when you driving at the correct speed on a 70 or 90km/h road you will constantly get passed by other cars or be urged to get out of the way to let them pass. On the other hand, speeding on 30 km/h roads is not accepted. If caught, speeding will cost you from 1500 kr (about €160) (1-10 km/h too fast) to 4000 kr (about €430) (36-40 km/h too fast) on 70 km/h or faster roads. Speeding on slower roads are more expensive.

You are obliged by law to have your headlights on at all times, even in the middle of the day. Modern Swedish-sold cars always have the lights turned on automatically (unless you actively turn it off), so if you rent a car in Sweden you won't have to worry about it.

Hazards

See also: Winter driving

Wild animals! The biggest roads normally have fences against wild animals, but the smaller roads do not. You need to look out for deer and moose - a moose collision in particular is very dangerous and often kills instantly. In the north you will also have to watch out for reindeer.

Be extra careful to wild animals on the roads under these circumstances:

In some cases there are fences along part of the road and then the fences stop for the purpose of letting the animals pass. In such cases and in other places where wild animals are often seen there are normally warning signs.

These animals are mostly moving at dusk and dawn. While driving along lakes be especially observant as animals go for drinks at the lakes. Also, if driving in the September hunting season, the wild animals might be scared by hunting parties and move around more than usual.

If you hit an animal and it wanders off into the woods wounded, don't forget to mark the spot where it wandered into the forest and call the police. Hitting an animal is not a crime, but not reporting it is. Your car must be fitted with a special paper ribbon for this purpose. The purpose for this is to be able to use dogs to hunt down the wounded animal.

Some useful phrases that might be found on signs

Parkering Förbjuden - No Parking

Drunk Driving

Do not even think about driving even after you have drank one beer. The legal limit is .02, only a quarter of that in the United States, Canada, and Britain. Police, at any time, can take blood by force, and if you are over the limit, its automatic jail time.

Trucks

Keep in mind when trying to overtake a lorry with trailer. That these are often longer than in other European countries. Maximum length is 25.25 meters instead of 18 meters in continental Europe. This is the standard and does not have signs indicating a long vehicle. These vehicles are allowed on all roads unless there's a local weight or length restriction. It's not uncommon to meet these lorries on narrow, curvy rural roads fully loaded with timber. If so, slow down, keep out or find a place wide place to meet, if the road is really narrow.

This is a usable article. It touches on all the major areas of the topic. An adventurous person could use this article, but please plunge forward and help it grow!

The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Driving in Sweden


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Driving in Sweden Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.

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