Posted on 11/22/2005 6:42:47 AM PST by 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.
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