It’s good to be a rider in Norway

Riders in Norway enjoy a freedom that is actually quite impressive.

It’s good to ride a bike in Norway. This is from near Byrkjelo in the west.

Riding a bike in Norway gives you advantages that other vehicle drivers can only dream of. Just listen to this:

– Bikes can filter in traffic queues.
– Bikes are exempt from road tolls.
– Bikes are allowed to ride in the bus lane (not with a sidecar, though).
– Bikes are for the most part exempt from bridge and/or tunnel tolls (the exception being where a bridge or a tunnel has substituted a ferry, where you’d pay anyway)
– Bikes have free parking in designated areas.
– When approaching a ferry queue, you are expected to move all the way to the front, passing the queue, so that the ferry crew can stack your bike in spots where a car can’t be parked. So you’ll always be first on board.
– Automatic speed cameras do not recognize bikes (but let not that trick you into speeding).

Road toll? Bikes are free. Naturally.

These benefits, if we can call them that, are all firmly based on reason. If we cannot use public transport, it is good for traffic that we use two-wheelers instead of congestion-creating cars. As we also are “soft” road users, we need extra protection, e.g. allow us to ride in the bus lane. And so on. Nothing of this has come by itself, though. The Norwegian motorcyclists have through their own organisation, NMCU, fought for these rights. And now you, who are coming to visit us, can enjoy exactly the same benefits.

Nice, or what?