Norway’s roads fail UN standards

Many of Norway’s main highways are not up to standards set by UN agreements to which the country is party.

Newspaper Aftenposten reports that many of the main highways in Norway, known as European highways because they are part of the continental “E-road network” and use the network’s signage, do not follow rules laid down in a 1992 UN document. The UN document sets a number of standards for the most important roads in Europe.

Among the breaches is the fact that Norway is building new two-lane European highways without concrete step barriers (otherwise known as Jersey walls or Jersey barriers). Speaking to Aftenposten, Vilrid Femoen of the Information Council for Road Traffic described Norway’s breaches of the UN standards as “systematic,” adding that Norway’s own framework for road standards was below the level agreed at the UN.

Some critics believe that Norway’s highways could lose their status, although the UN agreements apparently do not have the power to do that.

View and News staff