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On the ground in Iceland: Street-level differences, Part 1

By Rain Noe - March 29, 2010

in Object Culture

I was sent to Reykjavik to cover their newly inaugurated Design March festival, an annual event dedicated to showcasing Icelandic design. Iceland is the only Scandinavian country I hadn't been to so I was curious to walk around and soak up the vibe. Unfortunately, a flight that landed at 5:50am and jetlag sent me traipsing around Reykjavik in the early morning, when there wasn't a lot of vibe to soak up as everything was closed. But I broke out the camera to record whatever differences I could find.

First sign I'm technically in Europe is the omnidirectional street parking.

It's not a big deal in most of the world, but if you do this in the 'States you get a ticket. Why? Because no U.S. municipality has any confidence that its citizens are competent-enough drivers to pull a U-turn to park without killing someone. And after the first accident there'd be a lawsuit. Sigh.

Second sign I'm in Europe is the small, sensible American cars you'll never see in America. Chevy Lacetti, anyone?

These cars are basically the automotive version of U.S. movie stars doing coffee commercials in Japan--they do it for the overseas money and hope that no one back home finds out about it.

Walking around Reykjavik, I soon noticed that every other car's tires made a strange noise rolling down the street, a sort of quick clopping noise, almost like a bunch of miniature horses wearing horseshoes on asphalt. Simultaneously I found myself almost tripping and stumbling through two crosswalks in a row; I chalked it up to the jetlag and had no idea my clumsiness was actually related to the noisy tires (read on).

Inspection of parked cars revealed some had tires with what looked like nails driven into them:

While I was taking this photo, the car's owner appeared and I asked him about the studs. "They're for the ice," he said. "But I'm from Minnesota and we've got plenty of ice up there, and we don't use these."

"Are they any good?" I asked.

"Not really, at least, they're not good for the roads," he said, pointing. I looked closer at the asphalt (and later, cobblestone) surfaces, and saw that there were actually two troughs worn into the street, in the rough width of tire tracks. Two subtle dips you'd never notice if you weren't looking for them, which explained my stumbling street crossings.

Next thing I noticed was that the main drag, Laugavegur, had an odd configuration. It was a straight street, two car widths wide, with one of those widths donated to parking. But the parking side alternated on each block, so the road had a snaking quality, a sort of less-exaggerated version of San Francisco's Lombard Street.

I couldn't figure out why they would do it this way, instead of having all of the parking on the same side of the street, until I saw cars navigating the road: With every intersection requiring a slight S-turn, you have a sort of built-in speed limit that's less annoying than speed bumps.

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Studly

14 years ago

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The studs appear a little different than those on winter tires we commonly see on cars in Canada...

That said, studs are absolutely essential for winter driving in most of Canada. They do cause a bit of extra wear and tear on the roads, but they save lives. They're also banned in some cities, but only in the few regions where ice and snow doesn't tend to build up.
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Ray Jepson

14 years ago

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The Chevy Lacetti is available in Canada and the US. Chevrolet Optra in Canada, Suzuki Forenza or Reno in the US (depending on hatch or sedan).

Also of note, the Lacetti raced in World Touring and British Touring Car. It won races in both.
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look

14 years ago

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The Lacetti was sold as a rebadged Suzuki Reno briefly in the US. You never saw one on the road, because they received horrible reviews, and because Suzuki has no brand presence in the US outside of motorcycles. The Reno was contending with the Corolla, the Civic, Sentra, Elantra, tC, Focus, Cobalt... you get the idea.
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Paul

14 years ago

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As far as I know, they build like this to slow down traffic. You can't go as fast if you have to change lanes every once in a while.
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Goerlitz

14 years ago

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The Lacetti is actually made by GM owned Daewoo. I guess to cash in on some cheap brand points in Europe, they slapped on Chevy badges. And it seems to have worked, actually!

Anyway, thanks for sharing your Icelandic experience - I'm going to Reykjavik later this year, so I'm eagerly sucking in all the details you're covering :-)
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