Abstract
It was not a serious accident; neither humans nor animals came to any harm. But this small everyday event revealed the complexity of an entire system and the problems that arise from the system itself. On my way home from the weekend cottage in western Lapland, I got stuck in the snow, and as a result, the road traffic was stopped for about 1.5 hours. I will discuss the situation and my own experience by using Ulrich Beck’s analysis of the causes of risks. The risk may realize, first, in a situation where an individual endangers the system. In this case, I decided to drive on a road that had layers of windswept snow, and the car got stuck in the middle of the road, stopping all road traffic. Second, the risk may materialize if any part of the system fails. In my case, this was exactly the case: the road maintenance was running late. And third, the risk may materialize because the system itself does not work and there is some kind of basic operating failure in the very setup. I started thinking about this possibility only after I had reached the shelter of my home. In this article, I will analyze the entire road traffic system using the idea of a socio-technical system: how institutions, including not only authorities and decision-makers but also laws, rules, decisions and contracts affected the situation. How material elements, including not only technology like the car but also natural conditions affected the situation. And finally, how humans as actors on the scene, and just as well away from it, contributed to the occurrence of the accident.
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Acknowldgments
I would like to thank researcher Janne Kirjavainen for his comments on earlier versions of the paper. Also, I thank the editors and reviewers of the book for their constructive feedback. This paper is a part of the project Regulating the Sustainability Transition of the Transport and Mobility System in the Arctic (ARCTIC TRANSIT), led by research professor Jukka Similä. The project is funded by the University of Lapland from 2023 to 2024.
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Suopajärvi, L. (2023). When the Risk Realizes on a Wintry Road. The Failure of the Socio-technical System of Land-Based Transport in Northern Conditions. In: Strauss-Mazzullo, H., Tennberg, M. (eds) Living and Working With Snow, Ice and Seasons in the Modern Arctic. Arctic Encounters. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36445-7_7
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