We have again seen during  the past weeks that winter conditions can be hard all over  the Europe. There has been big difficulties also in road traffic. Should we still need more training concerning driving in difficult and slippery conditions ? At the moment Finnish driving license legislation includes some obligatory track training sessions. Should we have during the driving years some more obligatory training ? Also controlled and approved voluntary training could give some advantages concerning for example car use charge or traffic fines. My personal opinion is that we should have both because safety technology in cars and traffic infrastructure take big steps all the time and our nation is aging quite rapidly.  I’m sure that anyway concerning voluntary training we can make huge improvements and save many lives and our living environment.At least in Finland we lack suitable training facilities (open throughout the year) concerning voluntary driving training and heavy traffic. Osarata (Drive Training Track Foundation of Oulu Region) has planned since 2007 to build modern Turvapolis – drive training center. Turvapolis concept  includes a modern safety hall both for active and passive traffic safety, versatile training facilities and a totally new slippery drive training track suitable for heavy traffic and voluntary training. Turvapolis – center is a duplicable concept at least in the northern Europe.We at Osarata live now interesting times concerning decisions about financing applications made to the local authorities last year (EU funding). Hopefully we will get understanding and positive decisions despite of hard economical times. We have plans ready and waiting eagerly to get started with our innovative project soon. 

Jyrki Ylätalo

Project Manager