And as everyone knows, Germans drive like crazy on their Autobahns, so they're clearly not the type of people who would willingly put speed bumps into their sentences. Therefore, capital letters don't work like speed bumps at all. My logic is bulletproof, case closed!
I've found it more relaxed to drive at a constant 120km/h in the Netherlands. No braking and accelerating all the time.
Second, although anecdotal: I don't drive that much in Japan (live in a part of Tokyo where cars are just a hindrance), but I make the 2+ hour drive to Shizuoka every few months. Every trip, I definitely see several people being pulled over for speeding.
Most people do seem to drive 30kph or more over the limit, though.
[1]: http://www.accessj.com/2013/05/automated-speed-cameras-in-ja...
[0] default 60km/h[1] for undivided inter-urban roads though it's common to get a 50 or even 40km/h speed limits, the default highway speed limit is 100km/h[2] but it's commonly lower than that, and I've seen limits as low as 70km/h on highways, keep in mind that all highways are toll roads and they're expensive as hell (entry fee of ~¥200 plus ~¥25/km[3], Hokkaido has a special tourists rental ETC[4], Honshu does not)
[1] under 40mph
[2] 62mph
[3] ~¥40/mi
[4] from ¥1800/day for 2 days to ¥800/day for 2 weeks or more, unlimited travel. With regular ETC, going from Sapporo to its airport (New Chitose) is ¥1400.
In Europe only France seems to have high speed train that actually goes at high speeds. German ICE is chugging along in first gear all the time except for short stretches but those are are very few and between.
I once took Cologne to Amsterdam with ICE and it took more than 3 hours, which defeats the point of a fast train.
Driving is still popular here.
A) It's fun, there is a lot of beautiful scenery to admire and highway service areas have restaurants where you can eat some local food or buy souvenirs from that area.
B) It's cheaper to go by car once you have four people, even with highway fees and gas (most journeys in Japan aren't that long in terms of actual distance traveled, and normal cars are legally mandated to have very good fuel efficiency).
TBH my favorite way to travel is by highway bus. They used to really suck, but have gotten better in the last five years or so because they have a lot of competition from high-speed rail and cheap airfares. You can travel comfortably in a big seat with free wifi and power outlets very cheaply, usually less than half of the equivalent Shinkansen ticket, in exchange for the journey taking a few hours more.
Not actually true. They may drive fast but in a really cultural and organized way while (mostly) respecting all the rules.
I don't see a high degree of relevance of German grammar to a critique of the AP document [though I see it as more relevant than the rules of logosyllabbic languages such as Chinese]. Readers of German have different expectations than readers of American english and a standards document probably ought to take those differences into account because the goal of journalistic writing is to communicate to a particular audience.
Capital letters make it easy to find proper nouns and sentences when scanning quickly. Their omission is why I find "IM speak" harder to read.
In a language that doesn't use capital letters so much, they stand out and whilst speed reading you do need to slow down a bit and figure out what's weird with the sentence being read. You can no longer just directly pick it up, you have to read it one notch slower and build it. This can be quite noticeable when speed reading. It happens with large words too. As you get used to certain capitalized words (names in a book, common large words, things like Internet) this speed bump decreases, but it's still there for people.
Kristen Hare is unlikely to win this year's prize.