Speaking as the American in France, I stared in horror and complete befuddlement when I was expected to pay for the privilege of driving on a public highway. (CA has its share of toll roads but nothing nearly to the expanse of France.)

My question is how does the rest of Europe compare? Particularly Spain and Italy...

Also a quick nod to the Shadows of Europe team, I've said it before, but you guys did an excellent job. I feel the flow from past to future and love how you were able to root a lot of material in the history of Europe. I only hope that SoA does the same.

I've been in England a lot and never saw a toll road there.

There are a ton of toll roads in the States. How could you miss them?

I'm am American who lived in Europe for 3 years (specifically Ireland and then Hungary) - I didn't hit a lot of toll roads, though. I heard they're horrendous in France, but other places either weren't bad or were easily navigable around. In Hungary, the big, new, fast highways were a little expensive but not prohibitivly. And it was easy to go around them, it just took longer as you had to go through every little village on the way. In German, Austria and Germany, everything was nice - the autobahn kicks ass (or should I say arse).

Fortune--True, but it's possible to drive from one city to another without stopping 5 times to pay a toll.

I drove from Paris to Grenoble and had to pay repeatedly...

To be more on a SR topic and avoid thread closure, the SR equivalent of those highways are the EuroRoutes. Expect them to be very fast and efficient, and expensive. And as you can see on the map, they cross all over Europe.

Please, go on. This will only take a second.

In Cal Free, they have those crazy Ranger-Rigger dudes. Pay up, or eat a missile. Doesn't seem cost-effective, but it's a good abject lesson.

Which is where the 'abject lesson' part comes in.

This has given me an idea for a character who could make some easy money on the side: Make a troll with a maxed out body attribute. When he's not running he goes out and stands in heavy-trafficed roads during rush hour, blocking the commuters until they pay him off.

Street name: Troll Booth.

Then you are bloody well asking the GM to introduce said Troll to the loving affections of a 40 ton truck at speed.

Nowadays: France has the highest tarrifs in Europe. If in France, don't use the highways (autoroute), go for the interstates (route nationale) instead. Most of those are built like a highway, too, and best, they're free of charge. Sometimes, there's no way around using a highway, but get off of them as soon as you can.
Austria and Switzerland have pretty stiff tariffs too. Especially Switzerland, which requires you to buy a year's vignette even if you only so breifly cross onto teir highways (price is around 50 Euros, I think). Germany so far is free of charge, unless you're a truck driver. Italy and Spain also have tolled highways, but those are somewhat more affordable than France's.

In Shadowrun, I would expect the Euroroutes to cost like highways in France. Not only do the owners have to pay for road maintainance (the need for which, due to free earth elementals and spirits and whatnot, should have increased significantly), but they also have to pay for the highways to be kept free of hoodlums and critters of al kinds. Plus I'd expect the highway patrol to be armed to the teeth, maybe even see the national armies - or special militias, like in the ADL - patrol the highways.

Agree. The way it is in France should propably be concidered a pointer to how it will be everywere if the future becomes anywere near Shadowrun´s collaps of nation states in favour of corporations (in the case of road tarif´s, I don´t know about other things).

With all due respect, there are very few things that can be concidered common to all european countries. We are a diverse bunch.

It depends on the country. France is bad, yes. And I beleive Italy has some too. There aren't any in Denmark, barring if you're planning to cross the Storebelt or Øresund bridges and I can't say I've encountered any in Norway or Sweden either. There may be some cleverly hidden away in Germany, but again I've never encountered any there. There are a few in eastern Europe too.

> Yes, highway price is high in France. But there is some part of highway wich is free. Of course it's only for some kilometers but for example you can go to Paris by highway from almost all the parisian region for free. There are also some (but I can't say "most of them") interstate which look like highway. It's sure, if you use highway you gain time and it's more simple to find your way, but you can go anywhere without highway.
Note that initially, the french highway are build to be free. The price is just to save the construction price. But of course when people usually pays to use it, with the time, it's usual and so nobody say nothing... then why spend money with free highway since people already pay to use them ? :-/

This is for nowaday. In shadowrun, with all the corporation I think it's pretty the same for the price. And also add technology for surveillance. When there are speed limit on highway, you can find more radar than today. Maybe police helicopter is remplaced by drone, etc.

Talking about speed limit, this and other rules should be diferent for each country in europe. For the example of the speed limit, in germany there are no speed limit on highway today, but in france it's limited to 130 Km/h. In SR, driving rules should have also big differences in europe.
> Daegann

As far as I know, the M6 is the only toll road we have. We have several toll bridges or tunnels (Severn Bridge, Forth Bridge, the one in Bristol whose name escapes me, etc).

As time goes by, however, I anticipate tolling in some fashion. There was a proposal... what was it, two years ago? for a black box to replace standard road tax. The idea was that you paid for what you used, with higher rates for using motorways or inner city roads. I think it got slapped down in a storm of "invasion of privacy" anger. It failed now, but imagine that same proposal under the Lord Protector's jurisdiction.

Can't find my copy of that, but I'd guess no - that would probably be the M25 (aka, "The World's Biggest Car Park") which Crowley was responsible for making look like a satanic rune L)

During a recent trip to Italy, whenever you got on the highway you'd have to take a ticket. When you got off, you put the ticket in a machine, which calculated how far you'd travelled, and charged you appropriately.

Thanks for everyone's input so far!

I don't know what the Tír na nÓg sb says about roads here in Ireland, but trust me: they're crap now, they'll be crap in 60 years time.
Maybe, just maybe, the Dublin-Galway, Galway-Sligo, Dublin-Cork, Cork-Limerick, Dublin-Belfast, and Limerick-Athlone roads will be moderately decent...

But once you get off the "motorway" (how writing that word in this country makes me laugh... ), you'll be onto the narrowest little boreens the world has ever seen.

And heaven forfend you have to drive up Glengesh in Donegal. The sheep there already charge any car they see. I'd hate to see what the Awakening does to them...

We don't have straightaways.
We have slightly less bendy bits of the roads.

There are two things you get a lot of practise in, if you drive around Ireland on country roads (and I have to, when driving to and from work):

1: Making use of every damn bit of asphalt on the road, as well as the couple of inches of grass that lie between the edge of the asphalt (if you want to be charitable and call it that) and the stone wall or 3-10 foot drop at the side of the road.

2: Anticipating where you're going to run into some damn idiot Jackeen fucknuckle in an SUV wider than the road, so that you can pull in and let him pass (you never assume that they're going to pull in...trust me...).

I am exaggerating very slightly for effect.

So if anyone wants to have an exciting car chase in TnO in Shadowrun, just bear in mind that if you're off a national road, you won't be doing more than 80kph (if you're daring and lucky) - and if you go that fast and don't know the road, you might end up saying high to Flossy, the awakened cannibal sheep...

@Critias:
I'm glad you enjoyed your holiday.
Yes, hiking and biking are very popular ways to tour around Ireland.
I'd never do it. I'm not that crazy...


Edit: PS - "Jackeen" is an extremely derogatory word for people from Dublin, used by everyone else in the country. They call us Culchies.

[ot] Is that why Shane Williams is so good at changing direction?

Roads in Europe tend to be a lot more narrow and winding than in the US. You get used to it. In fact, when I was in HAwaii (Big Island) in 2000, the car rental guy wanred be to never, EVER take the Saddle Road, because it was ... well, from his description, I got the impression it was half roller coaster, half Mad Max wastelands road littered with burn-out vehicles, mutants and killbots.

Turned out it was pretty tame compared to what I have driven on in France's Alps. It was almost wide enough for two American cars, and there never was a ravine right besides the road, only lava fields full of pointy rocks. And you could see the road in advance for almost a kilometer literally all the time!

Not to mention that, unlike the French Alps, I never encountered any opposing traffic, let alone drunkards who think that driving down a narrow mountain serpentines road at 150 kph is fun.

Every day, when I commute to the city, I pass a narrow, 1 1/2 lane road, where maximum speed is 100 (meaning that, if you drive slower, you will be honked at, and people will drive up till their bumper almost touches yours, flash their lights, and generally freak out) It's lined with trees - your average German alley road. Every damn tree on that troad, save for three that have been üplanted only recently, has it's own little cross, burn mark and little piles of glass splinters lying about. It's quite the dangerous road, yet it's getting a lot of traffic, because it's a main axis for commuters from the suburbs to the city. The road wasn't built with that in mind, though - it was built with Eastern border guard convoys moving back and forth in mind - so ... well, you gotta cope with that.

There's a reason driving school usually lasts around one and a half to two years here. Heightens survival rates enormously.

Okay: Irish and Welsh roads are pretty bad. Been there, driven that. But the worst roads in Europe...

Romania.

I have never been so afraid for my life like I was in the Carpathians. And not because of the vampires. *shudder*

Okay, you win. The only things I encountered along the sides of the roads in Romania were sheer drops, hitchhikers, and fat, 50+ year old prostitutes...