Bad roads spark police charges (Norway)

www.aftenposten.no ^ | 22 Nov 2005, 13:51 | aftenposten English Web Desk/Nina Berglund/NTB

[Kurt_Hectic]

A Norwegian trucker has filed police charges against the country's new transport minister and the head of the state highway department. He claims they're not maintaining roads well enough.

Leif Erik Nordmo of the trucking firm Power Trans in Rælingen, northeast of Oslo, makes the long drive between Oslo and Molde daily, hauling grocery items. He's wound up stuck on the mountain stretch of highway at Verma several times in November, because the road wasn't plowed.

"We're paying for a service we're not getting," an irritated Nordmo told news bureau NTB on Tuesday. He's furious that all the taxes and road fees he and other motorists pay aren't resulting in open roads.

On Tuesday he filed police charges against Transport Minister Liv Signe Navarsete and Highway Director Olaf Søfteland. Nordmo claims that road maintenance has declined sharply, that no signs are put out to warn against slippery conditions, and that there's a lack of turnouts where trucks can put chains on their tires if the snow and ice demand it.

Nordmo notes that the state is strict in making sure motorists follow laws and rules, and pay their fees. If they don't, motorists are reported to the police and fined.

He's simply doing the same thing, he says. "The state is obligated to properly maintain the roads here in this country, and it's about time they're held accountable when it doesn't happen," he said.

Navarsete, who took over as transport minister last month, says she's taking the charges seriously. She said she views Nordmo's move as "a reaction... that perhaps not everything functions as well as it should."

She said she'd investigate to see how road maintenance can be improved.

[Kurt_Hectic]

I just love it when the little man goes up against the goverment, but I don't think he'll win this one. The roads in Norway is in a terrible condition though, which hampers the national economy.

[Ninian Dryhope]

Transport Minister Liv Signe Navarsete is a pretty good looking old broad.

[Ninian Dryhope]

I found this story more interesting than the icy road story

"Student's killer gets 15 years

A 36-year-old asylum seeker from Somalia, who was found guilty of raping and murdering a female student at a college in Sogndal last year, was sentenced Friday to 15 years in prison.
Sogndal student Hedda Karterudseter was strangled last autumn.

PHOTO: PRIVAT


Hassan Samriye Hashin had admitted the murder. An appeals court also found him guilty of raping 19-year-old Hedda Karterudseter at Sogndal Folkehøyskole on October 28, 2004.

Hashin had followed Karterudseter home to her student apartment and admitted strangling her in a fit of jealousy. He denied raping her.

He had been sentenced to 16 years in prison by a lower court, which also found him guilty of both murder and rape. The maximum prison term in Norway is 21 years."

It sounds like you have some of the same problems with immigrants in Norway that we have in Texas. The difference is that we give a guy who steals some diapers from Walkout fifteen years in the big house and give the needle to guys who rape and murder 19 year old students.