Would you believe this is a „nice“ Icelandic road? PIC Danventure
Team Total Iceland never tires about raving about the lack of police in Iceland and how this is the main reason why some tourists and tour operators do not always follow the law. Seeing a cop on the Ring Road at high season is as rare as winning the national lotto.
In the highlands cops are non-existent and that territory more or less lawless year-round. That is why you may notice deep and horrible off-road tire tracks in lots of places in the pristine highland nature.
This dire lack of police is a byproduct of the financial meltdown occurring here in 2008 when baby-faced kids were allowed to run some local banks. The consequences known to all by now and this has taken a heavy toll on the country even if foreign visitors notice nothing.
This means that although the speed limit on roads in Iceland is 90 kilometers per hour at most, quite a lot of folks disregard this limit. Many of those foreigners used to driving faster back home. But speeding here is not very smart for the simple reason that most roads here are both bad and very narrow. While fine to put the pedal to the metal on fancy roads in the US, Germany og France the roads here are not compatible by a long shot. Quite a lot of roads here are actually still just gravel roads.[blockquote type=”blockquote_line” align=”right”]you will be given the option of paying a fine on the spot if the offense is not too horrible[/blockquote]
Should you find yourself driving a bit faster than the law allows and be so spectacularly unlucky as to run into the law you will be given the option of paying a fine on the spot if the offense is not too horrible. Fines can range from 10.000 ISK for smaller stuff and into tens of thousands at worst. Seriously ridiculous driving will get you a sentence, your car impounded and the visit to Iceland will end up being a lot different than you imagined.
Thus, do yourself a favor and drive slowly and carefully. Not just because the roads are bad but also because Iceland is a slow-tourist land and by racing along you miss a lot of the small stuff that makes this place unique.
[socialwrap align=”left”] [socialicon name=”fb” url=”” ][/socialicon] [socialicon name=”linkedin” url=”” ][/socialicon] [socialicon name=”twitter” url=”” ][/socialicon] [socialicon name=”google” url=”” ][/socialicon] [socialicon name=”rss” url=”” ][/socialicon] [socialicon name=”youtube” url=”” ][/socialicon] [socialicon name=”vimeo” url=”” ][/socialicon] [socialicon name=”pinterest” url=”” ][/socialicon] [socialicon name=”soundcloud” url=”” ][/socialicon] [socialicon name=”instagram” url=”” ][/socialicon] [socialicon name=”flickr” url=”” ][/socialicon] [socialicon name=”email” url=”” ][/socialicon] [/socialwrap]
