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For those of you who haven't had to venture into the great wide world today, let me save you the trouble: it is chaos!

Some of the worst driving I have ever seen

Pedestrians walking in the middle of the road - brilliant decision to make when the driving conditions, in places, are akin to driving on a sheet of ice.

People misjudging their speed and 4-wheel drifting around blind corners - again, in the middle of the road.

Or people in SUVs (guess what, this is why you should have bought your car) driving at 2mph and thereby creating a mobile chicane. I kid you not, I followed a person in an X5 who was doing 5mph max

Stay inside, if you can, and save yourself the hassle.

Well, having lots of space and long, empty gravel back roads helps too

I am annoyed that the Finns had to give up their system of 2-phase driving tests (You first passed your "normal" driving test, and then within a year you also had to prove you could control the car on ice) because of European Harmonization.

Sounds like dumbing down the system to me; just to come in line with the rest of Europe.

Well, sort of was going to happen anyway - as EU drivers licenses have to be valid all over the EU, if the Finnish test was significantly harder than elsewhere, people would just get their license in Sweden, Estonia, Greece or whatever...

That is interesting Julf, I hadn't realised that the EU were standardising the driving license. Does this mean that speed fines / points will also be standardised? In other words, if you are caught speeding in one country, they will add the points and/or fine to your license in your country of domicile?

Well, they haven't standardised the licenses themselves yet, but they have made all EU licenses valid in all EU countries, so that if you move to another EU country, you can keep driving on your original license instead of having to get a new "local" one. But full harmonization is one of the aims, so for you UK people, expect a 3.5 ton limit on vehicle weight for a normal car license etc.

They aren't harmonizing the points system yet either, but have put in place a system of member countries to report fines/transgressions, so that your country can add your "foreign" points to your license if they want to - but for now, that would be a choice for each country.