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by rconti 2360 days ago
Speed limits are incredibly low. I drove across Norway this summer and never saw a speed limit higher than 50mph.
3 comments

Highway speeds are 90-110km/h (55-70mph). General speed limits are 80km/h and 50km/h (50/30mph) depending on pop. density.

Speeds are often reduced if the road is sub par or if there have been accidents on that bit of road.

Yes. The limits are low, but definitivly not _incredibly_ low.

What highway? I was pretty surprised to not be on a proper motorway, it was all 2-lane highways. IIRC it was max 80km, with plenty of 70km and lower limits.

I drove Oslo Airport -> Flåm -> Bergen -> Oslo Airport. Looks like E16 / 7 / 52 were the roads involved, 968km loop.

Which mean you went the scenic route, crossed the mountain, hit the fjords, etc. The leg after Voss on Flåm->Bergen won the price of "the worst road in Norway"[1].

The motorways are mostly on the south-eastern part of Norway, where it's reasonably flat. There aren't that many of them, building infrastructure here is really hard.

[1]: https://www.nrk.no/hordaland/e16-bergen-voss-kara-til-_noreg...

Us foreigners could be forgiven for thinking the route between the two largest cities would have the busiest/most built up motorways :) I think the route via Flåm could certainly be considered "the scenic route", but my trip back was the most direct route per Google Maps.

I don't disagree that it's very difficult to build infrastructure! Every road must follow the contours of a fjord, or go over or through a mountain. I was very lucky to be able to drive the world's longest tunnel; I had read about it but honestly forgot about it until I made a left turn into a mountain and was perplexed as to how I could get to where I was going by driving into it.

To those that aren't sure: 50mph is around 80kph.

And yeah, that's gonna be a pretty standard speed limit, though some with 90-100kph are out there. Unless you meant 50kph... and in that case, it is low.

that seems a little low. imagine living in wyoming and never being allowed to drive above 50 mph.

imo, american speed limits should be much lower in the city and significantly higher on limited access highways. 25 in the city often feels downright dangerous; I'll often go slower if I don't think I'll be creating an even more dangerous hazard. on the other hand, 65 feels like crawling on a straight, wide highway.