kareina

It is a sad fact that people moving to Sweden with a driver's licence from the US, or from Australia (I have both) can't simply trade in their licences for a local one, but must instead jump through all of the same hoops a Swedish young person must do to obtain their licence. However, one of those hoops is a fun one: The Slippery Course.

This is a half-day session learning how to handle your car in slippery conditions, or having fun sliding around in a car. When we arrived this morning we started with a short lecture, in Swedish, by a guy who speaks REALLY fast. Luckily, I could read the slides, but then I needed to ask google what a handful words were (Before today I didn't know that "breaks" were called bromsar)

After the lecture we first played with some props--they have a bunch of car seats set up on a metal frame that can slide on rails and then come to an abrupt stop--the slope of the rails is set up so that at the moment of impact we were going at all of 10 km/hr, yet still the jolt was very noticeable. The next toy was a car set up on a frame such that it can rotate on its long access. They had us get in, fasten the seat belts, and then they rolled us, first one way, then the other, then fully upside down, where they held us for a bit (while the young girls squealed) before turning us back right-side up again.

I don't know if they said so explicitly (since I followed only most of the Swedish), but I suspect that the whole point of this part of the class was to make us WANT to wear our seat belts when we drive. They also showed us some films involving car accidents, and they showed a demo of a skull on a spring, and the difference between a sudden stop with and without a headrest behind the head (hint: you really don't want to be in a car without one).

After that they took us outside and divided us into pairs, so that each car would have one passenger and one driver. Our teacher suggested that I go second, so that he could do the explaining in Swedish and I could see what to expect, that way when it was my turn he wouldn't have to think so hard about the English words to explain what to do.

Our first task of the day was to drive a short stretch of road just long enough to reach an assigned speed, then attempt to make an abrupt left hand turn through some flexible tall traffic cones. However, the road surface just before the turn was (intentionally) both wet and oily.

Our teacher had done a demo of the tasks we would be doing when we first arrived, before we even got out of the car, so we *know* that it is possible to make that sharp left followed by a gentle right without colliding with any of the tall traffic cones. However, when the girl I was paired with tried it the first time, using the assigned speed of 50 km/hr, she failed to make the turn properly, and we managed to slide sideways through all of the cones at once.

She tried it a few more times at slower speeds, and never did manage to pull that one off, though she got better with practice. The next task was to do a more gentle change of lanes and straighten back out in the new lane, again doing the maneuver on a slippery surface, with the target path marked by more of the tall traffic cones. This proved easier, yet still she hit the cones on the first couple of attempts, then, finally found a speed slow enough that she could negotiate the maneuver.

Once she proved that she could do it they had us turn off the anti-skid technology that the car comes with, and she tried it again. This time we not only hit the tall traffic cones, we also did a full 180 degree spin before she managed to regain control of the vehicle.

After that set of playing on her part (and she was loving every minute sliding around) it was time to switch drivers. And I discovered that yes, 30 year of driving experience does matter. While I never did manage that really sharp left without clipping one or two of the tall traffic cones, I didn't go through them all broadside like she did.

And when I switched to the change of lanes I managed to do the maneuver at all the required speeds with only some sliding into yet another lane before recovering, but never hitting the tall traffic cones except for the time I had to do it without the anti-skid technology. He asked us if, having done this course, we would choose a car with that technology, and we both said "yes please".

After our lunch break our group swapped driving courses with the other, and she and I did the other exercise. This time the game was first to make a prediction of how long it would take to stop this time, then get up to an assigned speed and hit the breaks at a specific point, then see how many meters it took to actually come to a stop. The course was marked so we could easily read it off. Then we did the same thing, at the same speed on the second course, which was slippery with water and oil.

The difference? Well, at 30 km/hr we each, in turn, managed to stop on the good road in 12 meters, but but it took her 45 meters on the slippery road (I took notes when she drove, and she when I did, so I only have the written records for what she did, but I can remember some of my numbers anyway). At 50 km/hr she was able to stop in 20 meters on the good road, but took fully 90! to stop on the oily one (but I did it in 70, so some of that is experience). They didn't let us try the slippery course at 70 km/ph, but on the good road it took her 30 meters to come to a full stop.

All in all I found the course to be entertaining, and rather valuable. I wish they had had something like that when I was learning to drive. Now that this hoop has been jumped through I need only finish doing the practice exam questions on line and then take the driving test itself. That has been scheduled for early July, so I have a deadline to complete the practice questions.

After the course, since I had set aside the full day for the course, but we got back to Luleå (the course is held in Piteå, 45 minutes south of here) in the early afternoon, I opted to use the opportunity to run a few errands in town, and met lord_kjar there (he has a cold, so had taken the day off of work).

This evening our choir did a recording session, for the first time since I joined the choir. It was much fun. We sang five different song (2 to 3 takes each) and had a great time doing it. We had a good turn out for the recording session--we had six each sopranos and bass, and four each altos and tenors. I am looking forward to hearing how they come out once the guys have finished editing them. Technically choir is over for the semester--our last rehearsal was yesterday, but today was a recording session, and Friday we perform at the Farewell Dinner for the Exchange Students (since a high percentage of our Choir are exchange students).