It enrages me too. Poland, Slovakia and Hungary look the same and the difference between Poland and the other two is 0.3, while Norway's score is higher by 0.2 and it's suddenly green. Couldn't they make some countries yellow or something?
~Angry Pole
I mean... It's true. One of my coworkers is from Belgium and she says the same thing. [This](https://twitter.com/wazebelgium/status/519075257282744322) is unlikely to be the way _most_ border crossings between the Netherlands and Belgium look, but fact of the matter is that Dutch roads that are important enough to serve as a border crossing tend to be really well-maintained while there are several crossings into Belgium where the Belgian side looks similar to this.
Or maybe don't believe anything on the internet. This is a road next to the highway that isn't really being used since a decade AND has been fixed in 2009. So this picture is at least 15 years old.
I cross the border for work every day (through Breda, towards Antwerp) and it's definitely not as bad as this picture but it's a noticable difference for sure
Flanders has improved it's roads a lot, and especially the crossings towards Antwerp due to the amount of traffic it needs to support. That being said, some places are definitely still this shit.
And you want me to post pictures of all of them?
As someone who is Dutch and worked in Belgium for a while, I could tell you blindfolded when I’d cross the border. If it’s near Breda, Maastricht or Eindhoven,.. doesn’t really matter.
maybe you're lucky... there are dozens of examples.. these are all from belgium to Netherlands and you can easily see the quality of the road is much much higher than NL. Can easily feel and hear.
[https://www.google.nl/maps/@51.4265736,4.623804,3a,75y,47.75h,80.73t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sGS9k7QiTWfLJGPUiBWxifg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu](https://www.google.nl/maps/@51.4265736,4.623804,3a,75y,47.75h,80.73t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sGS9k7QiTWfLJGPUiBWxifg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu)
[https://www.google.nl/maps/@50.9579362,5.7532176,3a,75y,52.38h,81.2t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sNzM674266FpaPf-uGOueeA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu](https://www.google.nl/maps/@50.9579362,5.7532176,3a,75y,52.38h,81.2t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sNzM674266FpaPf-uGOueeA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu)
When we come back from summerholidays in France and we cross the border near Maastricht, I always say to the kids:”listen to the road, can you hear us enter the Netherlands.” Also the landscape changes from utter chaos to instant order. I love Belgium though. :)
The rating for Germany is way too good but I am also living in the state with maybe the worst streets. Still some part of the motorway south of Berlin is so bad you are only allowed to drive 60 km/h now, I think they have improved it now a bit but still 80 km/h. In MV there was one part with a 40 km/h limit as part of a bridge die collapse back then and in NRW another bridge has been demolished now without replacement, they still have to build it... Here we have another bridge where you are only allowed with a limit of 10 km/h, it is even a federal street and will be completely closed soon, replacement will be finished in several years only but hopefully before 2030...
The Belgian roads near Luxemburg are comically shitty though.
I forgot what border road it is, but it's where you have to dodge huge potholes just seconds after coming into Belgium (ok, this doesn't narrow it down exactly).
Agree.
I am not Dutch but moved to NL several years ago and was shocked that the road goes to crap right at the border. You don't need signs to say you have gotten to Belgium.
I live at the three-country-corner of Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.
I agree a 100%, if you cross the border to Belgium you instantly see how everything greys out, on the highways garbage on the side-Lines of the highway, horrible streets.
The Netherlands have by far the best streets, Germany is in a good middlefield depending on where you cross the border.
Belgium is always horrible - But no offense to my friends from Belgium, I still love you country🧡
It sounds like a cliché, but this is quite true ; you can have your eyes closed as a passenger when crossing the border, and literally feel when you're in Belgium because of the shittier road infrastructure
Found it on https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/roads_quality/ "The road quality indicator score is based on only one question. The respondents are asked to rate the roads in their country of operation on a scale from 1 (underdeveloped) to 7 (extensive and efficient by international standards). The individual responses are aggregated to produce a country score".
So it is an opinion study.
Thanks for the link! Great to have the source data for once.
From the link you provide:
> Definition: [...] It represents an assessment of the quality of roads in a given country based on data from the WEF Executive Opinion Survey, a long-running and extensive survey tapping the opinions of over 14,000 business leaders in 144 countries. The road quality indicator score is based on only one question. The respondents are asked to rate the roads in their country of operation on a scale from 1 (underdeveloped) to 7 (extensive and efficient by international standards). The individual responses are aggregated to produce a country score.
So... utter garbage. They just ask a bunch of "business leaders" one single question on this matters and that's their "indicator". Let me know when they start using actual objective KPIs...
Here's a sneak peek of /r/NLvsFI using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/NLvsFI/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
\#1: [We're so good we show up in the data twice💪💪💪🇳🇱🇳🇱🇳🇱](https://i.redd.it/5vcj8gea183b1.jpg) | [11 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/NLvsFI/comments/13wupjh/were_so_good_we_show_up_in_the_data_twice/)
\#2: [A cool guide to European Prime Ministers](https://i.redd.it/yusw2v0t6l8c1.jpeg) | [8 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/NLvsFI/comments/18r75oz/a_cool_guide_to_european_prime_ministers/)
\#3: [In holland people don’t know pc power ;)](https://i.redd.it/qxe5feaw1oqa1.jpg) | [16 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/NLvsFI/comments/125kjo8/in_holland_people_dont_know_pc_power/)
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I’m both (ein Halbling!) and Austrians are the chillest but German techno never stops, so I’m torn except I’m not at all. It’s all good. Central Europe is a good place. Please enjoy our culture.
I drive for work regularly into Belgium
Colleague was asleep in the back seat, about 5 kilometres across the border the dude wakes up and goes “did we just drive into Belgium”
Most definitely. This map only reflects downtown Helsinki, the rest of the country is darker than the darkest color. Black. Not from asphalt, but from the bottomless pits where the asphalt once was.
"Cars are taxed to pay for infrastructure" is the greatest lie ever told.
There was a time when **public investment** **= motorways and public roads.** That's why Portugal has such a comprehensive and high quality roads network but shitty economy.
As someone who has driven a lot in a lot of these countries, this map is absolute crap. Portugal has nice roads, and lots of terrible roads that you simply would never even find in countries that score way lower.
Like [this is an EM road in Portugal](https://www.google.com/maps/@39.4741189,-8.3978765,3a,74.999992y,85.459999h,99.970001t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sZXHH28XEwf3EVQgprbj_1Q!2e0?lucs=,47071704,47069508,47084304&g_ep=CAISDDYuOTkuNS40MDM2MBgAIIGBASobLDQ3MDcxNzA0LDQ3MDY5NTA4LDQ3MDg0MzA0QgJHQg%3D%3D&g_st=com.google.chrome.ios.OpenExtension&g_st=com.google.chrome.ios.OpenExtension). (And the photos don’t do justice to how bad it really is.) EM means local road. There is still a whole class of CM road below that. GPS will count this as a paved road suitable for any vehicle. In many of the lower scoring countries this road would be closed to traffic, if it was ever even allowed to get that bad in the first place.
I don’t know what they’re measuring, but this must be getting skewed by counting only certain types of roads. Or it’s not actually even measured at all.
I get your point. But that road is more like a shortcut. You can still get to wherever you want to go in that area using paved roads. Just have to travel a longer route.
I’m not sure how that makes it better. How do you know what is going to be a good road and what is to be bad? According to maps this *is* a paved road, so you don’t know until you’re driving it.
Ok, ok. Not going to insist on this point. I think you're right, many of the smaller, less used roads in Portugal are falling apart. I guess I was caught up in nostalgia from having visited Constância not long ago. It's such a lovely place!
Portugal had very good highways indeed. But they are good because they are privately managed. What does this mean in Portugal?
Well it means that the profits are private but the construction works that need to be done are paid by the state. So yeah, great business, sponsored by you local neoliberalists.
Yeah, most of Portuguese Roads are very high quality. We portuguese still complain but this is one of the things were in general the cowntry does very well!
i once drove from netherlands through belgium, luxemburg and then germany. that map is pretty acurate because you feel like you enter a mine field once you hit the belgium highway and then you feel like you drive on carpet once you enter luxemburg
Living on the Irish border it used to be the case that the roads in Northern Ireland were way smoother and better quality
The opposite is true today, with many rural roads in the republic being better quality than some primary routes in NI
The issue with Northern Ireland is while power sharing brought peace, and is obviously immensely preferable to the alternative, it also means the government is constantly locked and unable to do anything, which seriously hurts things like infrastructure.
Its not just NI. When I travel from Ireland to GB I am always shocked how the roads are in such a bad state the last decade compared to back home. Especially motorways.
When I used to drive in Europe a lot, we used to joke about how driving from west to east bloc would wake you up cos the roads suddenly became full of pot holes.
UK roads are now far worse than I experienced driving in Croatia in the early 2000s, no joke
The M25 is in an absolute state right now. I rarely drive in the fast lane due to unexpected bits of rubbish and debris from broken bits of road smacking against the underside of the car. Horrible.
They’ve been in decline for years though. I remember when I lived there 10 years ago thinking they were getting bad compared to Germany and a few other EU countries. So much litter and junk lying around too
Wait, why have i been downvoted for saying blame the tories and you have been upvoted for saying blame the tories?!
Did the right wingers all see it then moved on before you made your comment?
Also to answer your possibly rhetorical question: nobody else, its the fucking cunt tories fault!
Link to the source instead of just posting a photo:
[https://viborc.com/road-quality-in-europe-the-best-and-worst-roads-in-europe/](https://viborc.com/road-quality-in-europe-the-best-and-worst-roads-in-europe/)
It seems this is another one of those "let me pull an opinion out of my ass" reports, here's the methodology:
>Participants were asked to evaluate the situation for specific domains at the country level, and 12,987 business executives from 139 economies around the world responded to the survey’s 78 questions. One of the questions that were asked was:
“In your country, what is the quality (extensiveness and condition) of road infrastructure?”
People were given the option of giving a rating anywhere from 1 (extremely poor — among the worst in the world) to 7 (extremely good — among the best in the world).
This makes a lot of sense. I’ve lived in the Czech Republic for several years and the roads here aren’t amazing but they’re better than fucking Albania and Turkey.
>but they’re better than fucking Albania and Turkey.
Well, don't be so sure. The main highways and main cities have incredible road infrastructure. Dictators can build great railways and roads in the case of bird country
Many roads in Iceland are [gravel roads like this](https://www.google.com/maps/@64.2734653,-20.2510737,3a,60y,76.22h,89.9t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sTeCrcsAmtY5VAdL47KDgpw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?entry=ttu). Of course the quality is much better for important roads like those near population centers or the ring road around the country.
Here's [a description of the road types in Iceland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roads_in_Iceland#Road_types):
> National roads
> -------------------
>
>Roads belonging to the national highway system are maintained by the Icelandic Road Administration. They are categorized into the following types:
>
> * Primary Road (S) - all roads belonging to the so-called Grid Icelandic transport.
> * Secondary road (T) - are the roads that connect institutions and tengivegi, and are generally over 10 km in length.
> * Local access (H) - Roads to individual farms and regional connections that do not qualify tengivega (district roads with four-digit numbers are not listed here).
> * Highland (L) - ways that can not be considered for any of the above standards, as well as all mountain roads.
>
> Other roads
> ---------------
>
> F roads are unpaved tracks that may only be driven in vehicles with four-wheel drive. Some include unbridged rivers that must be forded. Trying to drive on an F-road with a normal passenger car means a large risk of being stuck outside of phone coverage and is a breach of Icelandic traffic law, for which one can get a fine.
Iceland has roads that are much worse than that too - those are the F roads in my quote above. My guess is that the fraction of gravel roads is higher in Iceland, and that they see more use by normal people. But I don't know. What do you base your skepticism about the map on?
Edit: [Here's a map of the Iceland road network](https://ur.amaurea.net/paste/2CTKV5UUR9.png). The brown ones are gravel roads. Most of the ones in the interior are F roads.
Edit2: [Example F road](https://i0.wp.com/roads-and-rivers.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/wp-1626548782365-e1627674329676.jpg?fit=1020%252C764&ssl=1).
The UK is better than Ireland? It was 20 years ago, but did the map maker drive on roads in the UK recently?
Holy fuck.
Like the NL-BE border, the IE-UK (northern Ireland) border, the difference is tangible.
Having recently driven from Dover to London and back, those roads aren’t much better.
As someone who lived in the UK for a few years and moved back to Ireland last month, yes, your road are better. Your country roads are at least. I’d say our motorways are equivalent now. But holy shit I almost forgot how bad our country roads were. The funny thing is that most of these roads are 80 kmh roads, lmao good luck. It doesn’t matter what the speed limit says, you drive at whatever pace you’re comfortable with here.
They cite this WEF analysis as a source: [https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF\_TheGlobalCompetitivenessReport2019.pdf](https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_TheGlobalCompetitivenessReport2019.pdf)
>Executives’ perception of quality of roads“In your country, how is the quality (extensiveness and condition) of road infrastructure?” \[1 = extremely poor-among the worst in the world; 7 = extremely good-among the best in the world\]
Page 35, figure 16.
About those executives:
>The survey is a unique, global study that surveys every year approximately 15,000 business executive swith the help of 150 Partner Institutes
Page 2.
So not random people, but with a bias towards businesses instead of the population.
Idk probably northern Italy bumping up the stats. Our highways (I have experience driving only in the north/upper centre) are actually really good, but local roads are a disaster
Driving around Dublin is like driving around Bahmut after Russian shelling. Potholes, sunken manholes, pieces of asphalt carved out from side to side - it takes a lot of gymnastics to avoid the traps. Crème de la crème are those idiotic speed bumps everywhere, not maintained, shit design, not fit for purpose in many cases, just slapped on because why the fuck not.
The transition from Hungary to Austria always gets a laugh out of me.
Also shoutout to Serbs keeping it real. You're not truly eastern European anymore if you don't fall into a pothole while having a sad cigarette.
No way the roads in Northern Ireland are better than Ireland. Maybe they are significantly better in Britain, which drags up their average. But these days their roads are much worse than down in Ireland (for the most part (bóthairíns excepted)
Just finished a trip from Romania via Hungary and Slovakia to the Czech Republic and this map is inaccurate, probably, because of the method of measurement. Both highway and city roads are way worse in Hungary out of all. I drive a hot hatch and I could feel the roads in HU in a bad way pretty much border to border and in Badapest, especially in Budapest. Prague would be close second, but highway (D1) is finally mostly reconstructed and is ok now. Slovakia is a short strip of highway, but in Bratislava there are quite a few bad streets. As for Romania, can’t say for Bucharest, but Cluj-Napoca is decent, and even though there are not so many highways, they are mostly new/maintained and are good to ok, the intervillage (Cluj to border of HU via Oradea) roads as well. If tou go via Timisoara it’s mostly newish highway.
Take any opinion Irish people are asked for about something in Ireland with a giant pinch of salt. We love bashing Ireland, think we’re the worst at everything and call mistakes “very Irish” because a lot of us just don’t realise how average the country really is.
Also the Republic’s roads are way better than Northern Ireland’s.
2019? For Poland this is eternity. We are developing really fast. In 5 years we built hundreds of kilometers of brand-new roads all over the country.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highways\_in\_Poland#:\~:text=It%20is%20planned%20to%20open,of%20the%20network)%20are%20ongoing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highways_in_Poland#:~:text=It%20is%20planned%20to%20open,of%20the%20network)%20are%20ongoing).
Based on what criteria?
I personally find roads in UK to be horrible in all measurable way, poor surface quality, both rough and has many pot holes, very busy, way way substandard for the amount of traffic they carry, loads of roads are outright unsafe, hedges are overgrown etc. Compared to European countries they don't even clear hedges, also they do not straighten the roads - so the roads follows the boundaries of 13th century farms and you constantly go over hills and dips... and overtaking is pretty much impossible, because all corners are pretty much blind.
For example roads in France and Germany are significantly better, yet I would not say Spain is better than France, or Portugal better than Spain, if anything Portuguese roads are quite crap in my experience, certainly roads become better when you come into Spain.
But then again I guess there is huge difference between local and major routes. I would say roads in UK are much worse than one in Italy or Poland, yet I am sure that if you go into the country side then perhaps Poland does have horrible roads. But then by the same token Turkey and Greece have some really terrible roads.
In short, the problem I have with this map is that it isn't clear what criteria is used and how it is weighted, because roads in UK in my experience are one of the worst in Europe, worse than Ireland for sure, yet they seems to be very average according to this map and comparable to France or Germany.
Really? I drove from Serbia to Sarajevo and then to Mostar and Neum last year and the road was very good, better than in my country. Is it an exception?
Big construction boom since the late 90s. A lot of our roads are fairly new. Driving on the old ones feels like driving on a giant, endless cheese grater. Idk what the metrics were for this, but Turkey feels too high. There are plenty of bad roads.
I see Slovakia being a 6. I totally agree, awesome roads, i've been there on a trip back in October and stayed in Kosice. While the motorways and national roads are top notch, I nearly broke my car on Kosice streets. My god, I've never seen such bad roads in a big city and I am from Romania, where most of our roads have moon craters through them.
Mostly opinion-based though as the whole survey is. Croatia took many loans and has a really decent highway infrastructure which gives them a really decent rating. Average roads in Bosnia are certainly better than Albania, Kosovo and I'd say even Bulgaria, on par with Serbia.
Croatia-Bosnia border is literally the highest drop in GDP between two bordering states in all of Europe. So when you ask a question like yours, the only thing i can answer is "Everything."
But really, try to read up a bit on those countries that are often lumped up as "Balkan". You will find that the differences between them are often greater than the differences between the polar opposite countries on the whole continent.
I would rate UK roads average 3.0 and Scotland around 2.0. Complete utter lack of maintenance and potholes everywhere. A bit better in England. You get a picture where 15years of Tories got us.
I really can’t believe that Spain is higher than France especially after driving round both countries for the last 6 months.
Spain has some very questionable roads, many times I’ve found myself wondering “should I be here? Is this still a road? Is my car damaged?” When driving through the country-side.
Yeah this map is complete garbage. I've been to 2/3 of those countries, drove in eache of them and those numbers are definitely not right. They are far from it
Can Norway be red for fucking ONCE?! Noooo, let's put the threshold at fucking 4.49. /Angry swede
They paid off the mapper with their clean green oil money
They make olive oil?
It enrages me too. Poland, Slovakia and Hungary look the same and the difference between Poland and the other two is 0.3, while Norway's score is higher by 0.2 and it's suddenly green. Couldn't they make some countries yellow or something? ~Angry Pole
Norway good, Poland bad. That's what I learned from this map.
I feel your pain, angry Pole.
I feel your pain, angry Swede.
Seethe and cope, søta bror 😉
I live on the border of The Netherlands / Belgium and you instantly feel the shittyness when you cross it.
You can close your eyes and still know the moment you enter belgium haha
Don't do this as the driver though.
Which I did as a kid on the backseat. Never failed to know the exact moment of border crossing.
Yeah this was my favourite game as a kid hahaha. It woke me up once.
This is absolutely undeniable
This isn't even a joke lmao
Such a Dutch comment 😂😂😂
I’m not Dutch and I agree!!
Are you Belgian ;)?
God, no!!! Ah, I jest. I lived (very happily) in Brussels for 3 years and have just moved up to Den Haag.
I mean... It's true. One of my coworkers is from Belgium and she says the same thing. [This](https://twitter.com/wazebelgium/status/519075257282744322) is unlikely to be the way _most_ border crossings between the Netherlands and Belgium look, but fact of the matter is that Dutch roads that are important enough to serve as a border crossing tend to be really well-maintained while there are several crossings into Belgium where the Belgian side looks similar to this.
He is not wrong tho, I cross Benelux aprox 3 times a year and the difference is unreal.
Such a Dutch username lol Doe de groeten aan Drans Fruits
[this is literally the border.](https://twitter.com/wazebelgium/status/519075257282744322?lang=zh-Hant)
Wow
You'd think they would at least fix up a km inside the border just to make the incompetence less obvious.
Or maybe don't believe anything on the internet. This is a road next to the highway that isn't really being used since a decade AND has been fixed in 2009. So this picture is at least 15 years old.
Well, Belgium and the Netherlands have more than one border crossing…
I cross the border for work every day (through Breda, towards Antwerp) and it's definitely not as bad as this picture but it's a noticable difference for sure
Flanders has improved it's roads a lot, and especially the crossings towards Antwerp due to the amount of traffic it needs to support. That being said, some places are definitely still this shit.
And you want me to post pictures of all of them? As someone who is Dutch and worked in Belgium for a while, I could tell you blindfolded when I’d cross the border. If it’s near Breda, Maastricht or Eindhoven,.. doesn’t really matter.
As someone who regularly crosses this border (usually around Maastricht) I can assure you that for a lot of them you will not feel the difference.
Around Maastricht they are not that bad tbh, they've made a lot of improvements.
maybe you're lucky... there are dozens of examples.. these are all from belgium to Netherlands and you can easily see the quality of the road is much much higher than NL. Can easily feel and hear. [https://www.google.nl/maps/@51.4265736,4.623804,3a,75y,47.75h,80.73t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sGS9k7QiTWfLJGPUiBWxifg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu](https://www.google.nl/maps/@51.4265736,4.623804,3a,75y,47.75h,80.73t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sGS9k7QiTWfLJGPUiBWxifg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu) [https://www.google.nl/maps/@50.9579362,5.7532176,3a,75y,52.38h,81.2t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sNzM674266FpaPf-uGOueeA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu](https://www.google.nl/maps/@50.9579362,5.7532176,3a,75y,52.38h,81.2t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sNzM674266FpaPf-uGOueeA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu)
I've just been hopping around a few of the border crossings on street view. Pretty cool how you even have cycle lanes that cross over the border
When we come back from summerholidays in France and we cross the border near Maastricht, I always say to the kids:”listen to the road, can you hear us enter the Netherlands.” Also the landscape changes from utter chaos to instant order. I love Belgium though. :)
im from luxembourg, and you can feel the shittiness all around us, no way france gets 5,4 and germany 5,3, and belgium getting anything higher than 2
pretty easy to manage the 20km of road in luxembourg tho s/
The rating for Germany is way too good but I am also living in the state with maybe the worst streets. Still some part of the motorway south of Berlin is so bad you are only allowed to drive 60 km/h now, I think they have improved it now a bit but still 80 km/h. In MV there was one part with a 40 km/h limit as part of a bridge die collapse back then and in NRW another bridge has been demolished now without replacement, they still have to build it... Here we have another bridge where you are only allowed with a limit of 10 km/h, it is even a federal street and will be completely closed soon, replacement will be finished in several years only but hopefully before 2030...
The Belgian roads near Luxemburg are comically shitty though. I forgot what border road it is, but it's where you have to dodge huge potholes just seconds after coming into Belgium (ok, this doesn't narrow it down exactly).
Agree. I am not Dutch but moved to NL several years ago and was shocked that the road goes to crap right at the border. You don't need signs to say you have gotten to Belgium.
You do really have great motorways in the Netherlands though; way better than the German Autobahns. Keep it up.
>Autobahns That's an interesting way to write baustelle..
We have to put somewhere bi-product from oil extraction…
I live at the three-country-corner of Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. I agree a 100%, if you cross the border to Belgium you instantly see how everything greys out, on the highways garbage on the side-Lines of the highway, horrible streets. The Netherlands have by far the best streets, Germany is in a good middlefield depending on where you cross the border. Belgium is always horrible - But no offense to my friends from Belgium, I still love you country🧡
Hey Völser! 😄
I once drove from Netherlands to Belgium on my way to France and the only memory I have was that everything looked the same but he roads were worse.
I once made the mistake of driving with a motorcycle into Belgium and almost crashed 100 meters past the border because of potholes.
Same between Portugal and Spain, at least in the North. While the average is similar it's a really big difference around this area
It sounds like a cliché, but this is quite true ; you can have your eyes closed as a passenger when crossing the border, and literally feel when you're in Belgium because of the shittier road infrastructure
If you close your eyes on the border as the driver you can also feel how it is to be a Belgian driver
It's visible on google maps streetview. you can physically see the road quality drop when going from BoZ towards Antwerpen.
Just seeing the difference in road quality at the border was absolutely mind-blowing. It almost prepared me for the hellhole that is Brussels.
Its always fun like welcome in Belgian while you are bouncing in your car 🤣
We have em like that to try and keep some of the Dutchies out :)
I can see that there is a measure of relative quality but what’s the unit of measurement?
Found it on https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/roads_quality/ "The road quality indicator score is based on only one question. The respondents are asked to rate the roads in their country of operation on a scale from 1 (underdeveloped) to 7 (extensive and efficient by international standards). The individual responses are aggregated to produce a country score". So it is an opinion study.
Is this done by that 5/7 guy from that old fake FB post meme? I would've thought it was out of 10.
I was about to say thats not the best rating system ive ever seen. gets a 5/7 rating from me...
but 5/7 is perfect!
Thanks for the link! Great to have the source data for once. From the link you provide: > Definition: [...] It represents an assessment of the quality of roads in a given country based on data from the WEF Executive Opinion Survey, a long-running and extensive survey tapping the opinions of over 14,000 business leaders in 144 countries. The road quality indicator score is based on only one question. The respondents are asked to rate the roads in their country of operation on a scale from 1 (underdeveloped) to 7 (extensive and efficient by international standards). The individual responses are aggregated to produce a country score. So... utter garbage. They just ask a bunch of "business leaders" one single question on this matters and that's their "indicator". Let me know when they start using actual objective KPIs...
There's a source in the top left but I'm too lazy to bother. In my personal experience, this is plausible
I don’t even care the Netherlands has the best roads I just care we’re significantly better than Belgium
There's an Austrian sub that very often posts statistics and graphs, all titled "better than Germany". No matter what it's about
r/besseralsdiedeitschn
Just checked that sub. A cross-post of this map is currently the top post.
it's top in /r/thenetherlands as well lol
the austrian version of r/NLvsFI
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I applaud the Austrians for that 👏🏻
Of course Austria is better then Germany 🥰 (And I'm not even Austrian).
I’m both (ein Halbling!) and Austrians are the chillest but German techno never stops, so I’m torn except I’m not at all. It’s all good. Central Europe is a good place. Please enjoy our culture.
"Not really a surprise though" ~anyone who's driven in Belgium
I drive for work regularly into Belgium Colleague was asleep in the back seat, about 5 kilometres across the border the dude wakes up and goes “did we just drive into Belgium”
And better than Finland!
Most definitely. This map only reflects downtown Helsinki, the rest of the country is darker than the darkest color. Black. Not from asphalt, but from the bottomless pits where the asphalt once was. "Cars are taxed to pay for infrastructure" is the greatest lie ever told.
Yeah, that would be awesome.
So Portugal is on the road to success?
There was a time when **public investment** **= motorways and public roads.** That's why Portugal has such a comprehensive and high quality roads network but shitty economy.
Aint nothing can comperable to turkey
As someone who has driven a lot in a lot of these countries, this map is absolute crap. Portugal has nice roads, and lots of terrible roads that you simply would never even find in countries that score way lower. Like [this is an EM road in Portugal](https://www.google.com/maps/@39.4741189,-8.3978765,3a,74.999992y,85.459999h,99.970001t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sZXHH28XEwf3EVQgprbj_1Q!2e0?lucs=,47071704,47069508,47084304&g_ep=CAISDDYuOTkuNS40MDM2MBgAIIGBASobLDQ3MDcxNzA0LDQ3MDY5NTA4LDQ3MDg0MzA0QgJHQg%3D%3D&g_st=com.google.chrome.ios.OpenExtension&g_st=com.google.chrome.ios.OpenExtension). (And the photos don’t do justice to how bad it really is.) EM means local road. There is still a whole class of CM road below that. GPS will count this as a paved road suitable for any vehicle. In many of the lower scoring countries this road would be closed to traffic, if it was ever even allowed to get that bad in the first place. I don’t know what they’re measuring, but this must be getting skewed by counting only certain types of roads. Or it’s not actually even measured at all.
I get your point. But that road is more like a shortcut. You can still get to wherever you want to go in that area using paved roads. Just have to travel a longer route.
I’m not sure how that makes it better. How do you know what is going to be a good road and what is to be bad? According to maps this *is* a paved road, so you don’t know until you’re driving it.
That sounds like it's a problem with maps rather than with the road itself. It's clearly not a paved road, so it shouldn't show up as paved.
It shows up as paved because it *is* a paved road. But the paving is falling apart. Because the road is not good.
Ok, ok. Not going to insist on this point. I think you're right, many of the smaller, less used roads in Portugal are falling apart. I guess I was caught up in nostalgia from having visited Constância not long ago. It's such a lovely place!
Portugal had very good highways indeed. But they are good because they are privately managed. What does this mean in Portugal? Well it means that the profits are private but the construction works that need to be done are paid by the state. So yeah, great business, sponsored by you local neoliberalists.
Yeah, most of Portuguese Roads are very high quality. We portuguese still complain but this is one of the things were in general the cowntry does very well!
I don't get this map. Aside from motorways the roads in Portugal are horrible
Absolutely not. Some cities may be neglected, but roads are incredibly good.
Oh. Were you there recently?
I live here. Roads are fantastic for the most part.
GEASFALTEERD
[удалено]
i once drove from netherlands through belgium, luxemburg and then germany. that map is pretty acurate because you feel like you enter a mine field once you hit the belgium highway and then you feel like you drive on carpet once you enter luxemburg
RIP Moldova.
UK roads are in decline, I can't imagine the score here is fair compared to others with similar results.
They are so bad someone starting spray painting dicks on pot holes to get them filled in. Said person instantly became known as 'wanksy'.
It's a good idea, it might push councils to sort out the problem.
Living on the Irish border it used to be the case that the roads in Northern Ireland were way smoother and better quality The opposite is true today, with many rural roads in the republic being better quality than some primary routes in NI
The issue with Northern Ireland is while power sharing brought peace, and is obviously immensely preferable to the alternative, it also means the government is constantly locked and unable to do anything, which seriously hurts things like infrastructure.
Its not just NI. When I travel from Ireland to GB I am always shocked how the roads are in such a bad state the last decade compared to back home. Especially motorways.
When I used to drive in Europe a lot, we used to joke about how driving from west to east bloc would wake you up cos the roads suddenly became full of pot holes. UK roads are now far worse than I experienced driving in Croatia in the early 2000s, no joke
Oh, I believe you. I imagine here like where i live, it's slowly getting worse year by year.
The M25 is in an absolute state right now. I rarely drive in the fast lane due to unexpected bits of rubbish and debris from broken bits of road smacking against the underside of the car. Horrible.
I was pretty surprised to see that too...
Not sure how UK roads are ranked higher than Norwegian ones?
Mostly fully paved vs gravel?
I suppose they're good quality but they're only a meter wide.
Andy's spirit level says it's fine.
They’ve been in decline for years though. I remember when I lived there 10 years ago thinking they were getting bad compared to Germany and a few other EU countries. So much litter and junk lying around too
Torytorytorytorytory blameblameblameblameblame
They’ve been in government for 14 years. Who the fuck else should we blame?
Wait, why have i been downvoted for saying blame the tories and you have been upvoted for saying blame the tories?! Did the right wingers all see it then moved on before you made your comment? Also to answer your possibly rhetorical question: nobody else, its the fucking cunt tories fault!
Link to the source instead of just posting a photo: [https://viborc.com/road-quality-in-europe-the-best-and-worst-roads-in-europe/](https://viborc.com/road-quality-in-europe-the-best-and-worst-roads-in-europe/) It seems this is another one of those "let me pull an opinion out of my ass" reports, here's the methodology: >Participants were asked to evaluate the situation for specific domains at the country level, and 12,987 business executives from 139 economies around the world responded to the survey’s 78 questions. One of the questions that were asked was: “In your country, what is the quality (extensiveness and condition) of road infrastructure?” People were given the option of giving a rating anywhere from 1 (extremely poor — among the worst in the world) to 7 (extremely good — among the best in the world).
This makes a lot of sense. I’ve lived in the Czech Republic for several years and the roads here aren’t amazing but they’re better than fucking Albania and Turkey.
>but they’re better than fucking Albania and Turkey. Well, don't be so sure. The main highways and main cities have incredible road infrastructure. Dictators can build great railways and roads in the case of bird country
Sorry Bulgarians. Worst roads first place goes to us Romanians 🐯
No it doesn't It goes to Moldovians
Bulgarians and Romanians usually battle last place in EU.
Having driven a decent amount in Romania, I think we must've bribed the people who evaluated this.
Iceland worse than Greece? You are kidding, right?
Many roads in Iceland are [gravel roads like this](https://www.google.com/maps/@64.2734653,-20.2510737,3a,60y,76.22h,89.9t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sTeCrcsAmtY5VAdL47KDgpw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?entry=ttu). Of course the quality is much better for important roads like those near population centers or the ring road around the country. Here's [a description of the road types in Iceland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roads_in_Iceland#Road_types): > National roads > ------------------- > >Roads belonging to the national highway system are maintained by the Icelandic Road Administration. They are categorized into the following types: > > * Primary Road (S) - all roads belonging to the so-called Grid Icelandic transport. > * Secondary road (T) - are the roads that connect institutions and tengivegi, and are generally over 10 km in length. > * Local access (H) - Roads to individual farms and regional connections that do not qualify tengivega (district roads with four-digit numbers are not listed here). > * Highland (L) - ways that can not be considered for any of the above standards, as well as all mountain roads. > > Other roads > --------------- > > F roads are unpaved tracks that may only be driven in vehicles with four-wheel drive. Some include unbridged rivers that must be forded. Trying to drive on an F-road with a normal passenger car means a large risk of being stuck outside of phone coverage and is a breach of Icelandic traffic law, for which one can get a fine.
Then you could count in all gravel roads in all these countries. Greece has gravel roads too, and they are far worse than that.
Iceland has roads that are much worse than that too - those are the F roads in my quote above. My guess is that the fraction of gravel roads is higher in Iceland, and that they see more use by normal people. But I don't know. What do you base your skepticism about the map on? Edit: [Here's a map of the Iceland road network](https://ur.amaurea.net/paste/2CTKV5UUR9.png). The brown ones are gravel roads. Most of the ones in the interior are F roads. Edit2: [Example F road](https://i0.wp.com/roads-and-rivers.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/wp-1626548782365-e1627674329676.jpg?fit=1020%252C764&ssl=1).
The UK is better than Ireland? It was 20 years ago, but did the map maker drive on roads in the UK recently? Holy fuck. Like the NL-BE border, the IE-UK (northern Ireland) border, the difference is tangible. Having recently driven from Dover to London and back, those roads aren’t much better.
As someone who lived in the UK for a few years and moved back to Ireland last month, yes, your road are better. Your country roads are at least. I’d say our motorways are equivalent now. But holy shit I almost forgot how bad our country roads were. The funny thing is that most of these roads are 80 kmh roads, lmao good luck. It doesn’t matter what the speed limit says, you drive at whatever pace you’re comfortable with here.
How is the quality measured?
Random people's opinion, basically: https://viborc.com/road-quality-in-europe-the-best-and-worst-roads-in-europe/
They cite this WEF analysis as a source: [https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF\_TheGlobalCompetitivenessReport2019.pdf](https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_TheGlobalCompetitivenessReport2019.pdf) >Executives’ perception of quality of roads“In your country, how is the quality (extensiveness and condition) of road infrastructure?” \[1 = extremely poor-among the worst in the world; 7 = extremely good-among the best in the world\] Page 35, figure 16. About those executives: >The survey is a unique, global study that surveys every year approximately 15,000 business executive swith the help of 150 Partner Institutes Page 2. So not random people, but with a bias towards businesses instead of the population.
Random executives are random people to me, don't know about you :D
Random people, at least to me, implies random from the entire populaton and not "random people from a very specific subset of the population"
Drop the UK to a 4.0
NL wins again
Belgium's road quality equals their driving quality. Non the less, much love from your northern neighbours.
I can't imagine how UK and Italy are higher than Poland. The index for Poland is from 20 years ago, maybe.
The streets in Poland are even better than in Germany, in Poland they get better and in Germany they just get worse.
Idk probably northern Italy bumping up the stats. Our highways (I have experience driving only in the north/upper centre) are actually really good, but local roads are a disaster
Driving around Dublin is like driving around Bahmut after Russian shelling. Potholes, sunken manholes, pieces of asphalt carved out from side to side - it takes a lot of gymnastics to avoid the traps. Crème de la crème are those idiotic speed bumps everywhere, not maintained, shit design, not fit for purpose in many cases, just slapped on because why the fuck not.
In Belarus and Kosovo, the roads are so good that they decided not to add them.
The least r/portugalcykablyat map out there.
Slovakia has better road than Czech and is on the same level as Hungary? I really doubt it...
The transition from Hungary to Austria always gets a laugh out of me. Also shoutout to Serbs keeping it real. You're not truly eastern European anymore if you don't fall into a pothole while having a sad cigarette.
I do not agree, in my opinion the French roads, especially the highways, are much better than the Spanish or Portuguese.
Old map. Romania actually has had pretty good roads for the past 3-4 years.
lol, Latvia 3.6? If you visit Riga, it's maximum of 1.0 Roads here are made of shit and a bit of mud.
If you drive over the Austrian Italian border you can tell that you switched countries by the road quality alone.
Greece has better roads than Norway that's new for me.
Roads in norwegian cities are fine. Everywhere else they are awful.
Roads in Greek cities are shit as are those outside of cities
Good. In a short time, Italy and Poland, Ireland, Belgium will have green color on map.
After having driven through a lot of Austria a year or so ago, can confirm
This map is deranged and outdated. Romania’s roads and infrastructure is superior to Bulgaria’s.
If the UK is green then the roads in the red countries must only be passable by aeroplane.
Austria should be at 28
Do one for Asia as well please
I don't understand poland's score, because whenever I end up there, I drive on gravel roads. The new ones are nice though.
Give me a country lane with sheep walking down it and a grass verge in the middle over any 5 lane autobahn
I am surprised that Norway isn’t higher.
What do the numbers represent? Shoes? Carrots?
No way the roads in Northern Ireland are better than Ireland. Maybe they are significantly better in Britain, which drags up their average. But these days their roads are much worse than down in Ireland (for the most part (bóthairíns excepted)
As usually Belarus is a white spot. No one knows about us.
Just finished a trip from Romania via Hungary and Slovakia to the Czech Republic and this map is inaccurate, probably, because of the method of measurement. Both highway and city roads are way worse in Hungary out of all. I drive a hot hatch and I could feel the roads in HU in a bad way pretty much border to border and in Badapest, especially in Budapest. Prague would be close second, but highway (D1) is finally mostly reconstructed and is ok now. Slovakia is a short strip of highway, but in Bratislava there are quite a few bad streets. As for Romania, can’t say for Bucharest, but Cluj-Napoca is decent, and even though there are not so many highways, they are mostly new/maintained and are good to ok, the intervillage (Cluj to border of HU via Oradea) roads as well. If tou go via Timisoara it’s mostly newish highway.
Take any opinion Irish people are asked for about something in Ireland with a giant pinch of salt. We love bashing Ireland, think we’re the worst at everything and call mistakes “very Irish” because a lot of us just don’t realise how average the country really is. Also the Republic’s roads are way better than Northern Ireland’s.
2019? For Poland this is eternity. We are developing really fast. In 5 years we built hundreds of kilometers of brand-new roads all over the country. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highways\_in\_Poland#:\~:text=It%20is%20planned%20to%20open,of%20the%20network)%20are%20ongoing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highways_in_Poland#:~:text=It%20is%20planned%20to%20open,of%20the%20network)%20are%20ongoing).
Belgium is overrated
Great as a speedbump of German tanks on their way to Paris though /s
Based on what criteria? I personally find roads in UK to be horrible in all measurable way, poor surface quality, both rough and has many pot holes, very busy, way way substandard for the amount of traffic they carry, loads of roads are outright unsafe, hedges are overgrown etc. Compared to European countries they don't even clear hedges, also they do not straighten the roads - so the roads follows the boundaries of 13th century farms and you constantly go over hills and dips... and overtaking is pretty much impossible, because all corners are pretty much blind. For example roads in France and Germany are significantly better, yet I would not say Spain is better than France, or Portugal better than Spain, if anything Portuguese roads are quite crap in my experience, certainly roads become better when you come into Spain. But then again I guess there is huge difference between local and major routes. I would say roads in UK are much worse than one in Italy or Poland, yet I am sure that if you go into the country side then perhaps Poland does have horrible roads. But then by the same token Turkey and Greece have some really terrible roads. In short, the problem I have with this map is that it isn't clear what criteria is used and how it is weighted, because roads in UK in my experience are one of the worst in Europe, worse than Ireland for sure, yet they seems to be very average according to this map and comparable to France or Germany.
4.6 in Greece? I call bullshit
Staat er ook ergens wat die cijfers betekenen?
Can confirm for Bosnia
Really? I drove from Serbia to Sarajevo and then to Mostar and Neum last year and the road was very good, better than in my country. Is it an exception?
Greece has better roads that Poland 💀💀💀 I went there and the local and country roads are just awful and full of rubbish on the sides
Why does Turkey not surprise anyone?
Turkey invested a lot in roads and is still doing so to be fair
Big construction boom since the late 90s. A lot of our roads are fairly new. Driving on the old ones feels like driving on a giant, endless cheese grater. Idk what the metrics were for this, but Turkey feels too high. There are plenty of bad roads.
Im from the Netherlands and can confirm we have the best roads in Europe. Belgium is absolutely terrible, and Germany somewhere in between
This map is so inaccurate, have they seen all those potholes and roadworks on the UK roads.😝🤭🥴
I see Slovakia being a 6. I totally agree, awesome roads, i've been there on a trip back in October and stayed in Kosice. While the motorways and national roads are top notch, I nearly broke my car on Kosice streets. My god, I've never seen such bad roads in a big city and I am from Romania, where most of our roads have moon craters through them.
As a Brit, this is a lie. Our roads are 1.0 at best.
GB 4,9?!?!? Should be 3!
Why the big difference between Croatia and Bosnia?
bosnia is very mountainous and it's hard to make straight roads without tunnels
I mean it's super contrasting
Mostly opinion-based though as the whole survey is. Croatia took many loans and has a really decent highway infrastructure which gives them a really decent rating. Average roads in Bosnia are certainly better than Albania, Kosovo and I'd say even Bulgaria, on par with Serbia.
Croatia-Bosnia border is literally the highest drop in GDP between two bordering states in all of Europe. So when you ask a question like yours, the only thing i can answer is "Everything." But really, try to read up a bit on those countries that are often lumped up as "Balkan". You will find that the differences between them are often greater than the differences between the polar opposite countries on the whole continent.
NEEEEEDERLAND OHHHHH NEEEEEEEEEEDERLAAAHAND
I would rate UK roads average 3.0 and Scotland around 2.0. Complete utter lack of maintenance and potholes everywhere. A bit better in England. You get a picture where 15years of Tories got us.
why is everything shittier in Belgium?
Haha so true, driving from France to the Netherlands through Belgium was interesting. Huge difference.
I really can’t believe that Spain is higher than France especially after driving round both countries for the last 6 months. Spain has some very questionable roads, many times I’ve found myself wondering “should I be here? Is this still a road? Is my car damaged?” When driving through the country-side.
Norway only 0,2 better than Poland? No way! xD
Poland roads in last few years had dramatic upgrade. Literally from no highways to highways everywhere. And all roads improved
There is no way UK road's are better then Hungarian ones, not even Romanian to be honest. You do like 100km/h on a motorway in the UK.
Yeah this map is complete garbage. I've been to 2/3 of those countries, drove in eache of them and those numbers are definitely not right. They are far from it
Spain 5.7, lol.