Occasional news from Sweden
NB use ‘we in Sweden’
The EPA-traktor
A few years ago I was sitting on the front steps of our house, trying to assemble a flat-pack wheelbarrow. Not very successfully.
My attention kept wandering. To the blooming flowers, the leafing trees, and to why the summer brought out the best in the Swedes. As if they too bloomed with the sunshine.
Every now and then, I would reflect, philosophically of course, on why anyone should dispatch a wheel barrow as a flatpack. I mean, the tray itself is bowl-shaped. Perhaps this was what is called an economy of scale – that it somehow works out cheaper to send the thing in mis-shaped bits rather than adding a couple of centimetres to the package and a whole kilometre to customer-satisfaction, by sending the barrow ready-assembled.
And every now and then, I would give up the meditation and launch into an engaging blend of English and Swedish swearwords to the entertainment, and edification, of passers-by. You may ask yourself why the mix. Well, the Swedish came more readily, the English added more intensely, for the very good reason that all Swedish curses involve God and/ or the Devil. If you don’t believe in either, the impact is softened to a gentle chiding.
I don’t know why Swedes choose to swear by something most no longer believe in. As usual, the Danes are way ahead and integrated a good ‘fuck’ or ‘fucking’ years ago. Though if you listened to anyone speaking Danish, you might be left wondering where the ‘fucking’ had gone to. The answer lies in the key to decoding the language. That is, to approach it as you might a half-completed cryptic crossword puzzle. Since the middle of any given word is swallowed in its utterance, you are left to fill in the gap based upon the context and your knowledge of the world.
Swedish doesn’t do this. It gives its words full value for money and compensates for making them more difficult to pronounce. Thus each letter in ‘skottskärra’ (meaning wheelbarrow) is carefully enunciated. More or less. The ’skott-’ is self-explanatory. The ‘kärra’ less so, since a ’k’ followed by an ‘ä’ (pronounced incidentally as ’eh’) becomes a ‘ch’. But get past that difficulty then it’s a piece of cake. If you can’t handle that, then go for the variant from the Deep South, ‘rullebör’. True the ‘ö’ might present a bit of difficulty but the great attraction of Scanish/ Skånska is that you can pronounce your vowels as you like. You could choose for example the croaking of a dying raven and be met with no more than a query as to which part of Skåne you came from.
… Needless to say, I’ve got way off-piste.
In the gap between God, the Devil and pagan curses upon Dispatch Managers as a species, I noticed someone coming up the drive. This doesn’t happen often. Our nearest neighbours live a kilometre away. They’re not in the habit of dropping in, any more than the rest of Sweden is, without an appointment made several months in advance. So this wasn’t one of them. Indeed, I didn’t recognise the figure at all. I judged it to be about 12 years old and of indeterminate pre-pubescent gender. As it came closer I noticed that its face was level with mine, even though I was sitting on the steps. Blond hair, blue eyes and dressed in white, tt looked like a pint-sized angel – a putto, perhaps. Though without the inflated cheeks, probably down to the fact that it wasn’t blowing a trumpet. Either that or a member of the Hitler Youth, assuming they had a junior corps.
It was carrying an empty 2-litre bottle of Coke. Bit of a cheek, I thought. Does this look like a 7-Eleven? I looked round. No, it was still clearly a private cottage.
Then it spoke. Definitely male. Midget maybe.
‘I’m terribly sorry to trouble you, but I wonder if you would be ever so kind and allow me to refill this bottle with water.’ Or words to that effect. ‘I couldn’t help noticing that you have a tap outside, but felt it only polite to ask before using it.’
The language was Swedish, but the hyper-polite manner was ûber- English.
‘Spot of bother with the motor,’ he explained as he held the bottle under the tap.
‘Motor,’ I burbled.
He nodded.
‘Apart from the radiator, she’s in pretty good shape.’
My eyebrows reached what was left of my hairline.
‘Care to take a look?’
You bet.
I stuck my head back through the doorway and told my wife I was just going down the road and why.
‘I’ve got to see this,’ she said.
We walked towards the lake. He’d parked at the side of the road what looked to be a black Lincoln. Or at the very least one of those limousines they use in Funeral corteges. Time was when it might even have been a bank robbery get-away car.
As we approached a small head appeared round the side of the passenger seat, followed by a small hand that waved at us.
‘You’ll have to forgive my younger brother,’ our escort said, flipping up the bonnet. ‘He gets a little bit over-excited on these countryside jaunts.’
When he’d filled the radiator, he turned and shook our hands, my wife’s shake being accompanied with a gallant bow of the head.
‘Can’t thank you enough,’ climbing into the driver’s seat and peering through the steering wheel. ‘If I can ever return the favour….’
Not much chance of that, I thought. I had no idea who he was or where he came from. I liked to think he was on the run and wished him luck.
The car moved off with a wheel spin and a spray of gravel. Then settled to a cruising speed of about 20 mph.
I’d heard of what are still called EPA-tractors before and seen them many times, usually parked outside the local high school on graduation day.
But I’d never seen one driven by such a diminutive chauffeur.
As far as I know, they are a uniquely Swedish phenomenon.
The phenomenon started in the 1920’s when the custom-built tractor was a rarity in Sweden. So a low-budget department store (called EPA, weirdly enough) had the brainwave to rebuild normal sedans, lorries and buses for use as tractors. When, in the fifties, normal tractors became cheaper and thus more common, the trend began to die out. Until teenagers seized their chance. EPA tractors were subject to similar laws to genuine tractors, meaning that since their speed was restricted to that of a moped on heat, they could be driven before the age required of a normal automobile.
The joy was short-lived when the government woke up to the fact that youngsters were enjoying themselves and promptly renamed such vehicles as A-tractors (though they are still familiarly known as EPAs), tightening the safety requirements and mandating a top speed of 30kph. Interestingly, the legislation never required seatbelts to be worn or the age to be raised above that required for a moped – that is, fifteen years.
Just a few years ago, however, the law was liberalised to allow ordinary cars to be tweaked to be classed as A-tractors, resulting in the recent surge in popularity. After all, a Porsche is still a Porsche even when it’s driven at walking pace and has a triangular warning sign on the back. And what can be tweaked can be un-tweaked.
The reason I mention all this is that EPAs have recently been much in the news given a spate (that is, four) of fatal accidents involving them – the victims being the occupants. Reliable sources say that in 2021, 547 were injured in accidents involving EPAs, a threefold increase over 2016. It’s worth pointing out that in just the last couple of years the numbers of EPAs on the road has nearly doubled.
Still, I can’t help feeling that the outrage is stoked by other road-users’ frustration at being stuck behind one slow moving vehicle after another. Especially when the EPA driver exercises the Germanic right to Schadenfreude by plastering a sticker on the back that says, ‘Just now, we have many waiting in the queue. Please be patient and your turn will come.’
Whatever the pretext, Swedish governments need little excuse to legislate, especially when it comes to restricting people’s enjoyment and wilful self-destruction. So it’s no surprise that the response has been to suggest legislation limiting the tendency of the youth of today to act like lemmings on cocaine. Namely, obligatory seatbelts, a review of the training for an EPA licence and measures that make the tweaking more difficult.
Which is all a bit of a shame. The EPA is, as far as I know, a unique tradition in a country that specialises in importing its festivities from other countries. Apart from suicide, that is, in which has been a world leader.
And it’s not hard to see the attraction of the four-wheel tuned-up moped.
If I’d been offered the chance at the age of 15 to drive something that resembled a car, I would have leapt at it. For a start, it would have enhanced by otherwise minimal chances of attracting girls by mega proportions. It would also have made me feel more like a man than my downy whiskers ever managed. Which is, no doubt, part of the fascination with the institution here too, not least to our miniscule pubescently-retarded visitor.
In fact, even as a post-pubescent deflowered adult, I would have seen the benefits. While I can ride a pushbike with something approaching casual aplomb, my career as a moped-/ motorcyclist was a catalogue of disasters. My first foray, at the age of 22 resulted in me badly spraining my ankle and writing a newly acquired Honda 50. I had a longer acquaintance with a post-war moped I bought in Italy to take me from the cottage I was renting into the local station. The duration of its survival was no doubt down to the sturdiness of the beast’s manufacture. For a long time it retained its functionality better than I did. I lost count of the number of times I skidded and bounced down the road after my bike in the icy winters of Northern Italy. I also lost count of the resulting bruises. Neighbours used to peer out of their windows in consternation until they saw who the upended rider was, then settle back in the armchairs and resume their lattes and newspapers in the realisation that it was all just a case of dejà vu.
All of this would never happened, if I had learnt how to brake a two-wheeler in the accepted fashion. Or if I had been able to buy an EPA.
True, you may feel that the absence of a requirement for seat belts verges on the irresponsible and is urgently in need of redressing. But, although, sadly, I don’t speak from experience, I can imagine – all too vividly – the degree to which inertia-reels interfere with heavy petting while tootling along.
Moreover, the security provided by seatbelts can be exaggerated. Besides instilling a sense of indestructibility, I can witness to the counterproductive effects when they malfunction.
About a year ago I was negotiating my way round the highways and byways of Costa Rica in a hired car, when suddenly the inertia reel decided to take itself quite literally. I had for a moment leaned back to admire the scenery. When I tried to resume the recommended posture, I found myself suddenly constricted by the seatbelt, which refused to budge from its position of maximum tension. Indeed, I felt myself being ever more constricted by the apparatus, as if I were an innocent rainforest tree being suffocated by a strangler fig. Instead of studying road position and oncoming traffic, I found myself staring at the roof of the car. I pulled in as soon as there was a space and a lull in traffic and managed to coax the damn thing into a less life-threatening place and survived the rest of the journey by attaching the belt to the steering wheel with one hand while I drove.
Seat belts stranglers
eems. And sad too for those gallant adolescents that put there life at risk in an effort to stem the world’s population growth.
Letters from Sweden 