True, the responsibility for safe lane change lays on the driver who is changing lanes. However, any sensible country also prohibits obstruction of a lane change, i.e. you can get fined if you don’t hold enough distance to the driver in front of you to allow merging, don’t make room for the person with the signal on in reasonable time or if you deliberately close the gap so the other person can’t change lanes.

That kind of cooperation is mandatory for good traffic flow and properly made laws try to ensure that. Turning signal should result in people noticing you, and letting you safely switch lanes. Too often people get into some vigilante-mode because they see the other driver skipping in line or something similar.

Merging is another story. Merging traffic should explicitly yield to all traffic already on the highway, similarly to how it works in a roundabout. This prevents people merging on a highway that’s over its capacity, so the traffic clears quicker. It means that traffic should queue on the ramp until it’s safe to merge, indefinitely if necessary. Mathematically it makes sense, but goes against intuition.

Some municipalities have tried out metered entry on highways, that block turning onto the on-ramp altogether if the level of congestion is too high. Some trials have already ended due to the perceived injustice as well, as people already on the highway are typically from out of the city, and thus preventing those living closer from merging onto it. Personally I think if you’re close enough to complain about that you should be in public transit range of the population center, and complaining more about the lack of alternatives to driving.

Yep, at those percentages there’s likely an amount larger of piss in every breath you take indoors. Always remember, it’s the amount that kills (or tastes like piss)

TBH, a dissertation as a suicide note sounds kinda like a power move.

Serves me right for assuming Germans had a similarly judgemental attitude to people who have ruined their finances. Thanks for the correction.

Finns often have a very puritan attitude to debt (you should fear it like the devil), and in the common discussion it’s often attributed to the ethics of the Lutheran church. That’s at least partially the reason we still don’t have a real personal bankruptcy option. Somewhat surprising to me that a country that shares that value system could be that forgiving to people – I’m a bit envious even 😅

Around here Klarna and other similar companies have long been seen as exploiting the fact that debt is really difficult to get through proper sources, and there’s a matching draconian bunch of collections agencies to support that business model. We’ve mainly been trying to tackle this by regulating the process of giving out loans, instead of giving people the necessary way out and thus giving the corporations an incentive to self-regulate.

If bad credit is actually no longer possible to collect on, it ceases to be good business. Hats off to Germany for having a proper route out of predatory loans.

I’ll try to find some and link, but I’m not sure if there are good ones.

Edit: couldn’t find one with quick googling. Guess I’ll have to write one when I have time.

Klarna 'bout to find out their business model doesn’t work as well in the US compared to the Nordic countries and EU, as

1. People are already up to their neck in debt, putting Klarna to the back of the queue in case there’s a default
2. Personal bankruptcy is a thing

Especially the Northern Europe personal bankruptcy is really not a thing, fuck up your finances and you’re never going to see a penny you make (above what you strictly need to live) until everything has been paid back. Debt that is actively being collected also never expires.

There’s a good reason Klarna’s been able to thrive in this environment – getting debt from banks is quite difficult and you have added security from the draconian collections process.

In the US a company ignores credit scores at their own peril. The bankruptcy process is one of the few things that works better in the US than in e.g. my home country Finland.