Danes and Swedes, Drinking and Cycling

Copenhagen cyclists stop for lights

I spent a few days working in Copenhagen (Denmark) this last week and had the opportunity to get a slightly better grip on the Danes and their differences with the Swedes.  I asked a few Danes what they thought the main differences were and the number one answer I got was that the Swedes like to find consensus on everything while the Danes aren't that focused on getting everyone to agree on everything all the time.  Still, the Danes, like the Swedes, aren't into hierarchy that much either.  One lady I spoke with said that decision-making in organizations comes from the bottom up and that supervisors are there basically to function as mentors.

Upon arrival in Copenhagen the first thing I noticed again is how many people are bicycling around the city.  The second thing I noticed was that most of them obeyed the traffic regulations, stopping for red lights, etc.  In Stockholm very few cyclists give a hoot about red lights and other traffic regulations.  I'd be curious to know why the big difference?

Shop hours in Copenhagen are no more generous than in Stockholm.  Most stores close at 5 or 6 pm and about the only thing to do at night is eat or drink.  And drink the Danes do.  On Friday at 5 pm large numbers of Danes were already on the street drinking and a number were noticeably drunk. A look at the OECD stats show that Danes rank 11th in the world for alcohol consumption (10.6 liters per capita), far ahead of Americans at 22nd (8.6 liters) and the Swedes at 26th (7.4 liters).  But if we look at WHO data on death rate per 100,000 we see that the Danes rank 6th right behind Russia and Ukraine.  The Swedes are way back at 30th and the United States at 39th.

It should be noted however that alcohol sales in Sweden are a monopoly of the state, heavily taxed and with limited sales hours.  In contrast, alcohol is sold in grocery stores in Denmark.  Leaving soused Copenhagen behind we traveled the five hours back to relatively sober Stockholm by rail in the rain, glad to be headed home.