MacGougan at Large

Notes on A Trip to Norway - 15

Chat with a Tow Truck Driver

While we were in Arendal, our rental car got a flat tire. It was a tear in the sidewall that couldn’t be repaired using the aerosol can provided in the trunk. The three sisters called for a cab to take them to town for shopping and a restaurant lunch. The two brothers-in-law chivalrously agreed to stay with the car as it was towed and hopefully repaired.

The tow truck, when it arrived, was a large, modern truck, full of hydraulics. The driver was an amiable young man who loaded our disabled car quickly onto the flatbed of his truck and invited us to join him up in the cab.

He then drove the truck briskly but politely through the twists and turns of the narrow local roads. This was pretty impressive, actually, as roads in Norway - until you get to a major highway - are mostly lane-and-a-halfers.

Here’s a stretch of Norwegian country road. Note that there isn’t a line down the center. Instead, there are lines on either side showing where the shoulders start. Out in the country, most roads are like this. Two small cars can pass each other normally, but if there’s a truck or even two SUVs, one or both will need to swing out at least a bit onto the shoulder.

So, back to our tow truck driver, maneuvering that truck through winding lanes. It was sort of like he was driving a Chevy Suburban up and down the aisles of a grocery store.

When we got to the bridge back to the mainland, the road was wide enough for there to be a line down the middle. This was taken from the cab of the tow truck. I don’t have any more pictures from that trip, so subsequent pictures below will be random Norwegian road pictures.

As he drove, he seemed happy for the chance to chat up a couple of Americans. First off, he wanted to know if it was true that many Americans don’t have health insurance because they can’t afford it. This is apparently difficult for Norwegians to comprehend. Isn’t the U.S. a modern and wealthy country?

We assured him that, sadly, it is true. I provided some nuance by saying that the U.S. healthcare system isn’t a total failure. It does a reasonable job of taking care of people who are fortunate enough to have health insurance - usually through their employer.

The discussion continued, but let me stop for a moment to note a certain asymmetry between Americans and Norwegians. If the roles were reversed and we were a couple of Norwegian tourists riding in an American tow truck, how likely is it that the driver would ask us in Norwegian about our health care system?

The Norwegians can speak our language. They know our politics. They know our celebrities. Meanwhile, my command of Norwegian is pretty much limited to saying Thank You, and I can’t name their prime minister or any member of their royal family.

We talked about the services and benefits available to Norwegians. The country provides a very generous and family-friendly social safety net for all its citizens. We’ve become accustomed in the U.S. to conservative politicians warning us that such things are creeping socialism that will hurt our economy and create unhealthy dependency. The word “socialism” for many people conjures up images of Stalinist Russia or Maoist China.

A visit to a place like Norway gives you a very different picture of socialism - one where people live longer and report a higher degree of happiness than people in the U.S.

Why are they happier than we are? It isn’t because their taxes are lower. Maybe it has to do with a reduction in stress. The lives of Americans can feel pretty fragile. Most of us are just a pink slip and a biopsy result away from poverty or even homelessness. Some people believe that such stress is necessary to motivate people to work, but it seems to me that too much stress has to be unhealthy in the long term.

I asked the tow truck driver about college. He said that college isn’t free, and can be expensive - particularly if you aren’t a top student. He went on to say that the vocational training he received after high school was free and led directly to his job.

He shrugged and said he won’t get rich as a tow truck driver and the hours aren’t the best, but in general he has a good and secure life. He admitted that he complains about the cost of living and the fact that everything seems to be taxed. But, he said, there’s an expression people like to use: “We can afford to be broke because we’re Norwegian!”