There’s always the exceptions

On December 1, 1999, a new law in Sweden made it mandatory for cars to be fitting with winter tyres. (It reduced traffic accidents by around 14%.) The tyres need to remain on the car until 31 March the following year. Well, if the weather requires it anyway. And that’s the Swedish Exception in effect.

We’ve noticed that there seems very few hard and fast rules that are not prone to the Swedish Exception. Except public transport fares. Quite plain notices proclaim that there are ‘no free bus rides’ on every bus I’ve been on. And I’m sure the trains and ferries are the same.

The exception with the tyres is fully dependent on the weather. So, if the conditions warrant winter tyres then winter tyres need to be fitted. I assume that if the weather is bad enough, patrols of tyre inspectors suddenly appear on the street, checking out people’s compliance.

Anyway, not wishing to run foul of any laws, today we headed up to Euromaster (recommended by The Perfect Swedish Family) to have Max kitted out in his new deep tread boots.

Not that the weather warranted it. Although the temperature didn’t rise above 2° there’s been no rain (or snow) for days so there’s nothing to make driving conditions anything but normal. This has made us happy because we were a few days late and, not growing up with Swedish Exception, we feel bound to follow the rules.

The guys at Euromaster, drove Max onto a small lift, lifted him up and removed all of his normal tyres. These tyres were then stored at the tyre hotel, a storage facility out the back of the main area. Here they stay until we come to collect them from 1 April 2021.

Weather permitting.

According to the Euromaster guy, the weather has been known to continue being winter tyre necessary well into April and on into May. Some years. I guess that’s the Swedish Exception coming into play again.

But that was just an hour of this morning, most of the rest of the day (for me) was spent preparing for a Talking Newspaper recording tomorrow.