Driving on the Autobahn
german-way.com
german-way.com
People here are amazed when I tell that story, 120 in a Honda? Is that safe? All I know is it felt rock steady, and the autobahn was so smooth and sweeping it, was nothing to drive at those speeds.
I brought that car back to the states and drove it till 2010. A lady backed into it in a store parking lot. Dented the left rear quarter, totaled the car because it wasn’t worth much at that time. Somewhere there’s Honda with a German owners manual in the US.
Edit typo
My '92 imported (from Japan) Legacy Turbo Estate (man I loved that machine) had both sets of speeds.
From last ~10 or so rental cars in EU can't remeber last time I saw one with mph on the dial.
Reminds me of a story a step dad told me... He was in Europe while in the military.I guess sometime in the 60's. It was late at night and him and his buddy were in one of those "tiny European" cars and not sober at all. Said they were doing nearly 100mph (as fast as it could go) and coming around a blind corner when they suddenly saw a police road block in the middle of the road. Unable to stop quickly enough, they lost control and ended up fish tailing off the road and out into a field. Unharmed thankfully. The police officers jogged over to them and asked if they were OK and apologized for the road block before telling them to stay safe and have a good night. There was no posted speed limit and drinking and driving was the norm apparently.
But what is even more amazing, safety belts were not standard back then and mandatory wearing of seat belts was only introduced in the 1970s.
So OP's narrator probably survived that accident with out any seat belts on.
Additionally, as far as I understand, the U.S. military personnel has a special legal status almost anywhere outside of the U.S.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavalese_cable_car_disaster_...
And Germany is also in the NATO, so the same rules are still there too.
I have driven my Honda Odyssey a number of times between 105 to 110 mph without any issues. But it doesn't have sufficient power to get to 120 mph in a reasonable distance.
One of my buddies held onto his old souped up CRX for years until the DMV forced him to get a newer car. He said the same thing. Rock solid at high speeds and still managed 35-40 mpg on a regular basis.
Just watch out for the crummy all season tires cars in the US have. I don't trust those.
Otherwise no problem.
They're fine for the allowed speeds on US highways. Obviously if you're going to be driving at high autobahn speeds you need tires that are rated for those speeds. (Although I've never seen a tire in the US that wasn't rated for at least 110 mph, which would be fine for a lot of autobahns given the 80 mph typical speed mentioned in the article.)
The real problem would occur if you had to stop or slow down as quickly as a car that actually had real brakes, like say an AMG. But hey... it would be HUGELY hypocritical of me to say that you should Not have done that.
Locking your brakes is not the fastest way to stop. What you want is to apply the maximum friction to the road, this means your brakes have to be letting the disks travel, and at very high speeds your disks and callipers get very hot, very quickly, at which point they stop supplying nearly as much stopping power, and you might in fact no longer be able to lock your brakes.
Anti-lock brakes (ABS) are an improvement, because they mean that if you over-brake (locking your brakes) they release them until the wheel starts rotating again, before re-applying the pressure. They're better than locking your brakes, but they're actually less effective than holding your brakes at the optimal pressure. They're just a lot easier to use than it is to apply that pressure manually (particularly as the optimum pressure changes as your speed does and the heat of your disks and callipers).
In a situation when you completely lock the wheels, you're trading the friction between the brake pads and brake discs, for the friction between the tires and the road surface. In other words, instead of the hydraulic clamping force on the discs, you're relying solely on the weight of the car. The interface between tire and road is not nearly as good as the interface between brake pads and brake discs, which wear to match each other exactly, as they're used.
So as a good rule of thumb, you never ever want to lock up your brakes. That's why anti-lock brakes are standard.
(The main exception is when driving on relatively deep and loose surfaces, such as sand or deep snow, where a locked tire builds up material in front of it.)
Undersized discs and pads have less thermal capacity, so they will tend to overheat and lose braking ability. A lot of lower-spec and economy cars will be perfectly capable emergency braking from full speed once, but you absolutely have to let the brakes cool off afterwards, especially if it has unventilated discs and rear drum brakes. That's fine, as long as you're aware of the limitations.
In comparison, a larger midrange car (such as a VW Passat) can reasonably handle repeated emergency braking situations without losing any significant amount of braking power, thanks to larger discs and pads.
There is also the matter of pedal feel, how confident the brakes feel or if they feel mushy and imprecise, and how the ABS system works.
So yes, of course the contact patch matters, but only if the brakes are adequately capable.
It took me a moment to get why that's supposed to be such a feat.
But it's miles-per-hour. So you were doing ~190 km/h. Yeah, that's about the top speed I would expect from such a car.
The few times when I was doing that speed in a Mitsubishi, I didn't have a problem with steadyness but I had the feeling the car was being lifted up due to the air currents.
Quite a strange feeling becoming airborne in a non flying vehicle.
Yup. It is a bit similar as in a plane wing: In a wing, there is an airflow below the wing, and another airflow above the wing. The wing is curved so that the air flowing above needs to travel a longer path, therefore it travels faster. Faster travel translates into lower pressure, therefore there is a pressure differential which lifts the wing up.
This is similar for a car, which is curved as well. Only, because the bottom side of the car is relatively close to the ground, there is less airflow which increases the pressure differential upwards.
This aerodynamic feature is also the reason why racing cars have features which cause that the airstream presses them into the ground. Without that, it would be easy to lose control.
In the TV show the runway runs out. The top speed is more to do with the length of the runway than the performance of the car.
I used to drive up to Scotland in a V6 Renault Espace. Due to crazy boss in the passenger seat sticking to the speed limit was not acceptable. We had lots of expensive tech gear in the back in very heavy flight cases. At two in the morning, with walls of ice and snow either side of the road, in something that had the aerodynamics of a bus the speedometer was stuck at 150 mph, mile after mile. Even allowing for a 10% error in the speedometer reading that was still faster than what a sane person who cared about holding onto their license would ever wish to go at in the UK.
Like your Honda, if I tell this story people question me as if I am bumping up the numbers a bit. "Are you sure?" "Renault Espace?" But yes, a speedometer speed of 150 mph (not to be confused with actual speed or kilometers) was definitely achievable, not for a few brief seconds but for tens of miles on the big downhill in to Scotland.
30 miles of empty road is different to a 3 kilometer runway and, if there is added gravity assistance, there is a much higher terminal velocity that can be reached than anything TV shows elude to. This is the bit people don't get.
Almost everything in the company fleet had a V6 engine. As well as buying cars tax efficiently the boss liked his booze so there were practical reasons why I was the idiot at the wheel. The Celica GT4 was good for 150 mph everywhere, no hills or suspicious speed claims needed. The true surprise was the one lame car, a Ford Escort diesel. This pre-dated the Ford Focus and the engine didn't have performance to boast about. Yet that would get a speedometer 140 mph no problems, plus the handling was great.
My last drive was when I quit that job and needed to move my stuff. I had a mere-mortals car hired for the day with flat spot tyres, play in the steering and lots of rattling things. It didn't even start first time. That wandered across the road a bit and did not feel safe.
After that I decided that normal driving was intolerably dull and, since I had not got caught or killed, quit driving for good. I made the humble bicycle my thing. On the bike I can go at max speed and effort everywhere, pulse fully quickened, at the limits of tyre adhesion and braking ability, getting that thrill of speed but doing no more than 20 mph or so. I don't have to kill my soul 'sitting in traffic' or inching towards traffic lights that go red as I get there. I just prefer continual movement and not being strapped into a tin box.
I still have not driven thus far this century. I am now old enough to not recommend driving idiot style. But then there are contradictions in the cult of the car. Performance sells cars but that performance is only enjoyed by proxy through TV shows, video games, motorsport and films. My friends who have driven nearly every day this century have not pushed it for real. Yet they have cars as bit as fast as what I was driving two decades ago. "All the gear but no idea" has been normalised.
The strangest thing for a new US owner would be if it was diesel.
It's just as safe as 80 mph, you will be very dead in either case if you wrap it around a tree.
That is neither required nor recommended and potentially dangerous. The correct protocol is to ignore pushy cars behind you and stick to your overtaking maneuver. But it is also questionable to even engage in overtaking if the car on the middle lane is so fast that overtaking takes such a long time.
* When getting on the Autobahn, there will always be a "Beschleunigungsstreifen" or acceleration lane. Use it to get to speed while watching the traffic on your left (while signalling, needless to say), then merge in.
* When getting off the Autobahn ("Ausfahrt", ha, always on the right (with < 5 exceptions)), there will be 3 beacons with 3, 2, 1 white stripes on a blue background indicating 300, 200, 100 metres to the beginning of the deceleration lane. Start signalling at the 300m sign, and do not slow down until you've changed onto the deceleration lane (as otherwise you'd force those behind you to slow down & reaccelerate).
* As mentioned, do not overtake on the right. However, if the highway splits (or at an exit), the broken white line dividing the lanes will change: wider and with shorter gaps. Here, one may overtake on the right.
And use it to actually accelerate. A lot of people are very reluctant to step on the throttle. I always try to match speed of traffic or go even a little faster before I merge. Much easier to look forward than having to worry about people behind.
Not everything is perfect on the Autobahn
That's just simply wrong. I can name (well, show) you dozens of counter examples where the lane is just too short, even if you'd only drive with 100 kph.
Still, it's a good rule of thumb to follow when possible.
how is it defined ? suppose someone is driving 100 km/h on the left lane while the right lane is free and you approach from behind doing 150- should you stay at the left and wait for slow car to move right ?
All joking aside though ... you don't pass on the right, so if they refuse to move you need to slow the heck down and follow.
I rented a 5-series and drove from Frankfurt to Schwangau via Munich last December. I've been driving in the US for 4 years now, and can tell that the Autobahn is only as stressful as you want it to be. There are multiple lanes, and if you're in the leftmost lane, you'll be tailgated by those with better cars even while doing 230 kmph. If you're not into that kind of stuff, just stay in one of the right lanes and enjoy the view (otherwise you better stay extremely focused on the road!).
Driving on the Autobahn also made me realize that buying a car for its speed is extremely pointless in the Bay Area (or any place that imposes speed limits), because one would never be able to experience the thrill that comes out of pushing the gas pedal for 30 seconds straight.
And the mere fact that somebody is tailgating you doesn't necessarily mean you're doing it wrong, e.g. consider what might happen on a two lane autobahn while you're passing a truck.
There is plenty of fun to be had of route 1, in 1st or 2nd gear, with a few horsepower underneath of you. Don't drive beyond your limit and route 1 is incredible.
>buying a car for its speed
I was talking about speed however.
Unfortunately, people who've never driven the Autobahn before don't usually get this and some seem to get in a blind haze and just push push push until their car is at their speed limit. That can be so stupid and dangerous. Use your common sense, please.
If I'm not driving "gemütlich" (like not in hurry), I stick to 120-130 km/h. For faster travels my personal enduring maximum is 180 km/h. Everything above is very exausting (and fuel consuming).
Regarding "safe" driving: There is probably a lot more than traffic. A45 has some unlimited sections with three lanes, but the curves are strong. With 200+ km/h (if you dare), you'll feel strong G-forces. Thrilling but also dangerous!
My personal advices would be: Observe how traffic works, see some idiots pulling left without using blinkers. It's often possible to tell if someone is going to change the lane in the next seconds.
Monitor the traffic with your mirrors. Don't underestimate speed and keep track of the cars near to you. Especially on the left lane you have to manage looking forward and into the mirror.
And last: Drive only as fast as you can. Cars tend to get noisy or tend to steer left or right. Be honest to yourself, if you feel that the car is flying, very sensitive to any steering or you simply clutch the steering wheel, you are on/above your limit.
However: The memes are true: On a lot days, it's not even possible to maintain speed around 130 km/h (probably depending on your route)
The engine sizes on base models on US cars drives me bonkers.
Why yes, if a 1.4 or 1.6L engine works in the alps and 130 speed limits, WTF wouldn’t it’s it not an option in 55mph flat country?
The leftmost lane is not just for fast cars. It's for every car intending to drive faster than the car in front of it.
I absolutely hate driving on the Autobahn in Germany. The pure stress and the amount of assholes you encounter is absolutely astonishing.
I have driven cars before in other countries, including the “chaotic” Italy and the US, and it was always a more pleasant experience.
The bigger the nearby city, the more traffic, the bigger pain is my global finding.
For example, I find Chicago to be much more pleasant to drive in than Milwaukee. Chicago's driving culture is relatively aggressive, yes, but there are conventions that people follow, so traffic is generally predictable. Once you get to know the rules, it's fairly easy to navigate given the traffic density. Whereas, in Milwaukee, the only convention I could discern during the several years I lived there is that the person who's trying to merge onto the highway going 20mph below the speed limit is also the person who'll fly past you at 20mph above the speed limit a minute or two later.
Only one rule matters in Chicago: potholes have the right of way.
As someone who spends too much time going slower than the rest of traffic in grossly overloaded light trucks I think I have some authority when I say that being a road obstruction to the point where people pull dick moves to pass you is a great way to turn everyone else into an asshole make driving stressful. As long as you're not trying to go a ton slower than everyone else in your lane (forcing them to rapidly merge left or slow down, wait for a gap and move left cutting someone off) driving in your lane shouldn't be too stressful.
It's changed, and I'm sure if OP was less polite he'd mention the influx of beat-to-shit vehicles from the east that can now drive through western Europe and don't follow the rules as well.
And the trucks from Poland. So, so many trucks from Poland.
The density of dick drivers is generally pretty high on the Autobahn. BMW and Audi drivers tend to be the worst. Actual proper sports cars (except Lamborghinis and other Mafia-appeal cars) are the fast cars with the nicest drivers.
I drive Autobahn both in Germany and Netherlands and I can tell you that driving in Germany is a 100 times more stressfull compared to NL! As soon as you cross the border to Germany everyone channels their inner race car driver and it becomes stressful. Driving in NL is much more relaxed and laid back.
You can have the same experience on a German Autobahn by staying in the right lane. You'll go at the same low speed as the trucks, nice and cozy, straight, without much worries or concentration needed.
Now, if you want to go faster, you do have the option (unlike in other countries), but then you'll have to be a bit more careful and dynamic, because it is quite possible that a car approaches you from behind faster than you approach a stationary target (if the car goes 250 km/h while you go 120 km/h, say). Of course that requires keeping an eye on not only the traffic in front, but also the traffic behind, and getting out of the way when required, so you have to change lanes quite frequently.
It is somewhat more stressful (if you choose to leave the slow lane), but that's the price you pay.
Furthermore, after a while, all this becomes second nature, and rather stress free, as long as everyone follows the rule. (What remains stressful are drivers not following the rules, eg not signalling before changing lanes, or changing into your lane when you're about to overtake them, etc.)
This hits the nail on the head. I know people who complain intensely about Autobahn driving and when I ride with them all of them have very poor viewing technique ("Blicktechnik") and are the kind of driver that's rather oblivious to anything that happens on the road that isn't squarely in front of them. Of course, with these predispositions, just things like merging or changing lanes become stressful each time. You have to be able to do both on the Autobahn, so Autobahn = very stressful for them.
For my money, best driving experience for a country is Spain. First class roads and drivers. Not too intense.
Like a modified limousine Audi, or?
I can't picture what you are describing as I don't think the A8 qualifies as snake-like, does it?
Piqued my curiosity for sure :)
But yeah, I can imagine that a car that big is hard to maneuver pretty much anywhere.
That way we can pass the trucks (right lane) and the racers on the left lane can do whatever they are up to. Sure, when there are no trucks around, I switch to the right lane too.
In my experience, this doesn't make you a whole lot slower (comparing end-to-end travel time), but the stress and gas consumption is quite a bit lower (compared to driving mostly on the highspeed left lane).
I was surprised by the poor behavior I saw on the Autobahn outside of Frankfurt a few months ago. The Polish trucks were especially bad.
I have driven cars before in other countries, including the “chaotic” Italy and the US, and it was always a more pleasant experience.
And then I got back home and realized just how undisciplined and generally awful Bay Area drivers are.
I have done Amsterdam to Bern (Holland > Germany > Switzerland) and back once every weekend for 5 years: the difference in driving culture is extreme. When the Germans will:
1: Check left mirror for coming traffic
2: Stay on their lane for 5 seconds
3: Check left mirror AGAIN to see if that far away car suddenly is dangerously close
The Swiss and Dutch will check once, if the car in the mirror looks "tiny" just yank over the the next lane.
Not strange, since both these nations allow for a maximum speed of 120kmh. Everyone is going the same slow.
I dreaded the 1 hour in these two countries more then the 5 hours spend in the Autobahn.
However, Germany is not Germany, it depends very much on the region. For instance, on the large 4-lane sections around Frankfurt, people drive aggressive and fast like mad. On the 3-lane sections in NRW, people have to drive annoyingly slowly because the Autobahn is a single roadworks. Then there are so many 2-lane Autobahnen in more rural areas which are also annoying because the average speed is low but there are aggressive people who think the left lane could bring them an advantage.
(As an aside, if you're ever in the area, go visit Auto & Technik Museum Sinsheim, and prepare to spend a whole day there gawking at awesome old machinery and airplanes)
At first, I found driving there a little bit intimidating. I'm used to Danish roads, where we drive 80km/h rather than 100km/h on most roads, and the speed limits are rather strictly enforced at 110/130km/h on motorways. I'm also used to Danish drivers, who generally accelerate and brake more gently, and generally drive slower cars (due to higher prices/taxes).
In comparison, Germans are more forceful drivers. I wouldn't say "aggressive", because they're much better at stopping for pedestrians at crossings, and yielding the right of way. But they accelerate and brake harder, drive faster in corners and have much more faith in the quality of their roads, and the skills of other drivers.
Once I got used to that difference in behavior, I found it much easier to grok German traffic and fit in.
That said, a BMW X5M passing you at 250+km/h while you're chilling at 160km/h in a rental Opel Corsa is always a little unnerving.
When I drive in Germany on the left lane, and there are 2 lanes blocked by trucks, and another car wants to pass them on the left lane, they will see me and wait (or even break). They know I can't break that fast and will create an accident.
In Belgium, you can drive on the left lane, and somebody merges into the left lane 10 m before you and keep going 90kmh on the left lane creating a traffic jam and unnecessary breaking.
This is what I like about german drivers, they see their environment and know their (and other drivers) location in the traffic.
Also, move to the right rule, it looks like 90% of the people follow it perfectly, in Belgium everybody drives on the second lane.
Spain is the second best country I've driven in. Croatia is also fine.
While most German drivers are very disciplined, not all of them are and there are plenty of irresponsible people treating the autobahn as their personal racing circuit. Also, not all drivers are actually German or necessarily that experienced driving very fast. The combination of idiots and fast cars is kind of predictably bad. Accidents at high speeds tend to be fatal.
Despite this, it's not as dangerous as you might think: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r.... Germany is doing better than e.g. the US or my home country (Netherlands). The reason is very simply that people on the autobahn tend to pay attention to what's happening. Situational awareness is not optional and paying attention becomes second nature quickly. If you've ever been overtaken by someone in a Porsche flooring the pedal, you'll think twice before moving in the left lane or outstaying your welcome there.
Even though I'm Dutch, most of my driving experience is in France, Spain and Portugal. I've never actually owned a car and typically only drive on vacation (rentals). For me, Spain is by far the most relaxed country to drive around in Europe. Roads are good, people seem to mostly behave these days (they've gotten more strict over the past 20 years), and there are lots of interesting places to drive to and beautiful scenery to enjoy. I've driven tens out thousands of km in that country over the years.
By comparison, the German autobahns are not in great shape. Like in the US federal funding for maintenance is not great. They're in a state of perpetual maintenance and you can't drive very far without encountering extensive road works. Being overtaken by traffic going twice your speed when you are basically flooring the pedal on your cheap rental is like crossing a highway on foot: very stressful. If you are renting a car in Germany, get an upgrade to something half decent. I once drove a rental Fiat panda that struggled to do 120 km/h on the autobahn and I don't recommend that. It's possible but you are basically going to be hugging the right lane and getting stuck behind slow trucks waiting for gaps in much faster traffic allowing you to overtake them. Merging left without the ability to accelerate quickly is stressful.
Road rage is a thing everywhere, it has nothing to do with the Autobahn. It's arguably more dangerous in cities where people stop their cars and get out to display physical violence. All over the world there are people who don't honor speed limits and want you to bugger off from the left lane, at least on the German Autobahn it's usually a crystal clear situation since the slower driver doesn't have the excuse that it's illegal to go faster anyway.
No, absolutely no. I've been all over Europe for my job and vacation throughout my life and there is no country with more order than Germany.
I have no idea how you get the idea about Italy. Besides France it is the worst driving experience in western Europe. People there are even proud of it. Eastern Europe is a topic for itself.
Seriously, there are assholes on the road everywhere but there is an overall flow of order in Germany you won't find anywhere.
- if I'm driving on the right lane and I'm approaching a car in front of me while some other car approaches me on the left lane to overtake me (or even if it's on the right lane but quickly approaching) then I usually slightly break even if I wouldn't need it. This way the car approaching from the back will see my break lights and will know that I don't intend to suddenly change to the left lane to overtake the car in front of me. This is nice for the other person and makes the traffic more fluid.
- the faster I drive the more I have to force myself to look more in the distance to be prepared for anything unexpected (sudden traffic jam, animals, debris, etc...). Sounds obvious but in other countries I usually drive up to max 140 km/h but with 200km/h I need a lot more space to react.
- I try to anticipate and modulate the speed more than in other countries. E.g. even if the pavement is dry where I am driving, if I see a dark cloud in the distance I usually start slowing down as it could be that a few km ahead even, if it's not raining, there might still be a lot of water if a heavy cloud just did a pass-by.
All in all I usually loved driving in Germany, with the exception of during the hours when people go or come back from work (can be quite hectic).
- Any maneuvering should be done with the gas pedal only. If you have to brake you are too fast. (Unless there was one single(!) idiot.)
- In general, it's good to track every car you see and extrapolate their intentions. There is a lot of communication going on. The range extends more if there are less cars.
- Pay close attention to cars trying to enter the Autobahn. Either move a lane to the left if there is space or speed up/slow down obviously enough they can adapt and get up to speed properly. When entering, speed up to ~60 kph and watch the others to see which space they offer you. You can mostly rely on them making space if you adapt a little. (Slow down if they speed up and vice versa.) It's extremely hard and dangerous to re-enter from a stop, so be confident and trust it will work out.
- About the distance thing: They started checking this, so pay attention. You can pay a high fine or lose your license!
- Going fast is really bad for your fuel economy. You'll have to get gas more often.
- Before and while travelling, keep close track of sudden 'Vollsperrung', which means the whole road is blocked (eg caused by accident, or eg quite recently they found an unexploded bomb from WWII under one of the main autobahns). If you drive into it and are unlucky you can get stuck all day. Be prepared for this to happen on longer journeys, so keep enough water and things to keep you warm in the car. 'Stau' is unpleasant, but 'Vollsperrung' can be a nightmare.
- There are two kinds of rest stops. The comfortable ones now all have toilets where you have to pay. If you stop at the small ones the toilets are free (but also a lot dirtier), so if you're stingy, stop there.
- It's considered very polite (kinda gentleman-grade polite) to change to the left (i.e. higher-speed) lane when you see a car building up speed to join the traffic from an acceleration lane (on the far right), to open a place in the traffic for them. That said, it's not "mandatory": you should only ever consider this as a lowest priority gesture, i.e. if noone's in sight getting ready to overcome you on the left. Conversely, if you're already driving fast on the acceleration lane and have trouble merging into the main traffic, and are already approaching the end of the acceleration lane, I've heard it recommended to stay on the subsequent "emergency lane" instead of e.g. reducing speed to a halt and trying to merge (or, obviously, forcing your way into some other car in the main lanes). It feels kinda risky, but the alternative of outright stopping, although it may feel tempting from basic instincts, is actually a huge immediate danger to you and everyone around.
- If you notice an unexpected, sudden congestion ahead, it's also considered good manners to blink your emergency lights, to signal a danger to drivers behind you. That said, I personally find it a rather difficult feat, given that if the congestion is sudden and unexpected, by definition it means I'm surprised by the situation, and thus quite busy handling the car and the gear trying to decelerate quickly but safely, while looking in all the mirrors and ahead at once to actively monitor the situation around. Searching for the rarely-used emergency lights switch is a risky distraction.
Or you can get a Dutch car (with a yellow licence plate, compared to the German which is white) and German drives will immediately recognise you as a danger on the road and give 'friendly' reminders with blinking lights to stay on the right side of the autobahn. Disclaimer, I'm Dutch.
Q: In the Netherlands, what happens to people who fail their driving test for the third time?
A: They get a yellow license plate.
American engineering is always over engineering, but lazy over engineering without any Teutonic perfectionism. Except maybe the various moon shots. Oh, wait.
What's interesting is a friend went back to mexico and was given a driver's license by just signing up for it without a test (apparently it's a right).
Here some links (in German, but the pictures should demonstrate the issue sufficiently):
https://www.tag24.de/nachrichten/blow-up-deutschland-todesfa...
https://www.google.com/search?channel=crow&q=autobahn+hitze+...
Road conditions are heavily dependent on the state. Not all states adequately fund highway maintenance, and some states have to deal with extreme weather variances that wreck havoc on all their roads.
Having driven both in Europe and the US, this is one of my pet peeves in the US. This causes so much unnecessary risk. I used to chalk this up to the super light driving test in the US (at least compared to Europe).
But recently I realized it's not just driver education: the road UX is different between Europe and the US on main highways. Here in the US, the right lane very often "disappears", i.e. becomes an "exit only" lane. The result is if you're going straight for a while, you find it easier to not stay on the right and then have to change lanes. In Europe, the road design tries to minimize the "vanishing right lane" syndrome: exits ramps are separated; and if need be, it's the left lane that goes.
I think this also varies state-to-state, I recently drove from Colorado to Texas and it really seemed to me that in general TX drivers observe the "stay right except to pass" rule much more than CO drivers.
The actual law varies from state to state and the rule you are discussing is actually the law in some states, but not in others.
Are there any instances where there isn't signage that informs drivers in advance? I'll drive in the right-most lane and if I see one of those signs, I'll check for traffic, signal and move to the lane to my left.
More cautious drivers are going to be more intimidated about this than most people, so they're more likely to move move over a lane so that they don't have to deal with it. They also, of course, tend to be slower drivers.
I've no experience driving in Europe (Europe, I love you), but I suspect that a big part of why I don't see this sort of thing happening in Canada is that, outside of very dense places like the middle of Toronto or Montréal, the onramps tend to give you a good kilometer to merge. Sure, you might also be liable to get a ticket for loitering in the left or center lanes, but that's also illegal in the USA. It's just not enforced, because everyone does it, because the roads encourage you to do so.
And then, invariably, someone behind them will immediately change into the right lane and speed up to pass them on the right. Thereby making it even harder for the person merging to get in, while also pinning the person who made room for them in the middle lane, because there's suddenly a bunch of faster-moving traffic in the right lane.
It will tend to work out this way even when it's a 3-lane highway and the left-hand lane is wide open.
> He died defending his right of way.
> His way was right, his will was strong,
> But he’s just as dead as if he was wrong.
I don't care that I have the right of way as I merge into the highway. I have no idea if the idiot who is doing 65 mph in the right-most lane, who clearly sees my merge maneuver is planning on slamming on the brakes after I merge in, or slamming into me.
I may technically have the right of way, but I sure as hell am not going to bet my life on it.
Really? In Ontario, entrance merge lanes are marked as if the opposite is true, with "lane ends 300 m" signs and painted lines all the way until it tapers off to nothing.
I'm not sure what the law says, but this creates the feeling that "you're lane is ending, not mine", and it's entirely up to entering traffic to match speed and find a gap. Basically, freeway traffic shouldn't adjust their speed unless it's the only way to let entering traffic enter (if there's no room).
In contrast, most US states seem to immediately merge the two lanes into one really wide lane that gradually (or rapidly) tapers down to normal width. Often without any warning signs for freeway traffic to expect merging traffic.
(Some US states also do this for exit ramps, which creates the dangerous situation where some drivers will accidentally take the exit at freeway speeds. This happened to me once at night, and I had to slam on the brakes before running the stop sign at the end.)
There is the general rule of right-before-left on intersections in Germany and some other European countries. But this does NOT apply on highways, after all an on-ramp is no intersection.
I have no qualms with accommodating merging traffic, a "zipper merge" is easy to accommodate when everyone leaves sufficient space between cars.... but drivers tend to bunch up on the on-ramp and you'll get a pack of 3 - 5 cars with < 1 car length of distance between them and then they try to merge as one unit, so invariably one or more cars either on the ramp or on the freeway end up stomping on the brakes which makes everyone behind them do the same.
So for this reason, I avoid the far-right lane when there are 3+ travel lanes.
Funny, one of my pet peeves since I moved to the US is the "keep right unless passing" or "left lane is for passing only" or any other variation of the same sermon. Sounds logical at first, but it's really bureocracy.
If the highway is congested, then the rule becomes meaningless. The traffic density is so high, that it's perfectly natural to use all of the available lanes.
If the highway is not congested, then the density is low enough that you should be able to change lanes as necessary, with minimal fuss. If that's the case, then the whole "keep to the right unless passing" is really just a crutch. In this situation, what we really want is something along the lines of "pay attention and don't make people pass you on the right", but that's not enforceable. So we come up with a rule like "keep to the right unless passing", because that can be enforced by cops.
I don't think this is true. On a German three lane highway you normally have a lane of trucks driving 60 mph, a lane of cars going 80 mph and a line of cars going 100-120 mph. This arrangement follows naturally from "keep right unless passing" since each of the lanes is constantly passing the lane to its right.
> If the highway is not congested, then the density is low enough that you should be able to change lanes as necessary
In my experience there is a lot of middle ground between these two cases, where there is enough traffic that you can't change lanes as needed to get around a slow person in the left lane (often because that person is driving right next to another vehicle in the right lane, and their speeds are so similar that it takes a long time to resolve which one is passing which), but there's not enough congestion that it no longer makes sense to have any designated passing lane at all.
Not entirely unlike how turbulence in a pipe decreases the overall rate at which water can flow through it.
On European highways passing always occurs on the left, this means nobody should be ever passing you on your right.
When you have an emergency like a tire blowout, on a European highway you can safely merge right towards the shoulder with urgency and confidence nobody is coming up fast from behind and overtaking you on that side.
In the United States, you cannot make that assumption, people are overtaking on both sides at any time, it's basically chaos.
https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/pubs/hdbk/traffic_l...
The only thing I like about US highways is the way they drive fast an cities, right and left, 60 miles, 5 lanes. In Germany there will always be a 100km/h speed limit, and 2 lanes only.
In the US, people who are going at or over the speed limit feel entitled to move as far left as is necessary to pass slower-moving vehicles.
But when you reach the far left lanes the person going 5 over feels entitled to stay there, even if if the person behind them is willing to go 10 over.
I think having no speed limit means you have to yield to faster cars, and enforces politeness. And the faster moving cars get past you and everyone is good.
For the best driving experience I'd recommend Bavaria. They have well maintained roads and less congestion, also only few speed limits. Avoid Baden-Württemberg and especially the Stuttgart area, unless you really like traffic jams.
Here's a map of Autobahn sections without speed limit: http://autobahnspeedhunter.de/routes_de/
Rather from the 90's and later. You surely remember the bike driver, jumping to dead over a heat-caused artificial surface ramp on the A93 two or three years ago.
Anyway, if Saxony really has better Autobahns than Bavaria, I need to go there soon ;) Any specific recommendations?
The not-wanting-a-truck-behind-you thing is new to me, didn't know that was a thing.
Indeed, you really need to get used to expecting some crazy BMW driver stuck in your back and flashing wildly when it was clear behind seconds ago as you switched lanes to overtake at 150 Km/h or so. But those who drive 250+ on the left lane are used to these situations already.
While this is somewhat common this is a clear violation of Traffic Law and actually also a violation of the German criminal code ("Nötigung"). It's definitely not "only mildly rude" and the types of people who flash their headlights aggressively (often accompanied by driving way to close to the car in front of them) are those we could really do without on the Autobahn.
[0] https://www.adac.de/der-adac/rechtsberatung/verkehrsvorschri...
Problem is that this is barely known to anyone, even in Germany. So you will be seen as an asshole anyway.
Um, you do realize that the George Washington Bridge is in New York City, one of the largest cities in the world, with an extensive system of public transportation? The idea that if NYC would just invest in some public transport those 9 lanes would go down to 3 is laughable.
That's because Tokyo and NYC are different cities in different countries, populated by people with very different preferences.
My point was not that NYC's public transportation and highway systems are optimal by the criterion of "optimal" that the poster I responded to appears to be using. My point was that the fact that NYC doesn't look optimal to him is not that NYC has simply failed to consider public transportation as an alternative. It's that, as I said, NYC is populated by people with different preferences from his, and NYC's public transportation and highway systems reflect those preferences.
Not to those of us who live in America. That's the nice thing about having different countries, and different states, cities, etc. within countries: it enables people with widely different definitions of "functional" to all find a place to live, instead of everybody having to conform to somebody's fixed idea of how people should live.
There is no need for a "No speed limit" sign because this is the default.
According to the very angry and also very stereotypically German Police officer pulling over me and my friend back in 2017, flashing your lights is in-fact illegal. We were doing approximately 140km/h having just passed the police car in the left lane when someone pulled out ahead of us going much slower forcing us to slam the brakes to avoid hitting them. No blinkers were used on their part and we flashed our lights as we had seen and experienced countless times on our trip to let them know we were coming. We had driven all the way down from the top of Denmark, through Germany, France and Switzerland, down through parts of Italy and were then on the way back up through Germany when this happened so we had seen people flashing their high beams like that countless of times, and it seemed like a good practice if you were going much faster than the people ahead.
My friend was driving at the time and luckily got no ticket and kept his license after getting scolded by the police officer for a good 15 minutes.
No idea if it's actually illegal, but considering of angry the police officer was I'm assuming so. We were confused as to why they stopped us at first, and he kept yelling/asking "what is that? Why do you do that?"
Other then that my experiences driving on the Autobahn (and that whole stretch of road) have been pretty good! Very straight roads of decent quality where they seem to use concrete or something instead of asphalt like they do here in Norway. Someone else mentioned the speed limits kept going up and down over short distances, which I remember as well.
I think the most perplexing thing for us driving on the Autobahn is that you can purchase alcohol, even the stronger stuff, at the gas stations along the way, coming from having a strongly regulated alcohol monopoly system here in Norway where anything stronger than 4,7% alcohol is only available at Vinmonopolet, which is only open specific hours and dribks with a lower percentage are also only available in normal stores within certain hours.
This is turning out to be a much longer comment than I intended.
Flashing the high beams or using your horn is allowed in two situations: to signal that you will overtake the car in front of you (or have the intention to do so) outside of a built-up area, or if you judge yourself or someone else to be in danger ($16 StVO).
There are some additional provisions about not blinding oncoming traffic, but that shouldn't be a concern on the autobahn. Signaling something that they are driving unsafe and put you in danger is justified by the law.
So yea, probably he just had a bad day. Or, he's one of the many many men that work for the German Police that are just enormous a-holes.
I'd just bought a new-to-me car in Germany in 2000. I'm stopped a light, futzing with the controls trying to activate the washer, and accidentally flashed the high beams. The driver in front of me was so concerned about this that they got out of their car and approached mine to ask what was wrong.
I don't know about legality, but, in some situations it will certainly alarm a German driver.
> gas stations
They're basically the only thing open 24-hours and on holidays so they'll sell whatever there's demand for in their location. I did work in a data center with a gas station down the street that doubled as a pretty decent computer shop.
I've driven around the US & Germany. There is no "typical" US driver. They vary based upon what kind of area in the US they live in, the time of day & the amount of traffic.
I do prefer the semi's & large trucks on the far right rule & the pass only on the left rule. This is sometimes applied around the US but plenty of cities have people passing in every lane which seems to slow down traffic overall.
Driving in the United States is very region dependent.
In cities it's everyone for themselves. Lots of speeding and general shenanigans. Especially Boston, Philly, NYC, Baltimore, SF, LA, DC, and Miami.
In the mid west drivers are generally more laid back and follow the speed limits more.
In rural parts of the Northeast like upstate NY and PA you'll find drivers a lot like Germans. Stay right, pass left.
PA turnpike has a speed limit of 70 but it's normal to see people doing 80-85 especially on I-80. But I-95 near Philly is even worse. Posted speed limit of 55. People doing 80 regularly in the left lane.
This is basically almost autobahn speeds.
For the non-mericans: 80 MPH ~= 128.748 KPH
American roads are all over the place as far as maintenance goes. The interstate road between NYC and Philadelphia is extremely high quality and you can easily hit 120 MPH (193.121 KPH).
In Germany, I noticed that they use camera enforcement for tailgating and undertaking - not just for speed. Since these activities seem much more dangerous than speeding, it seems strange that there is so little enforcement in the US.
That was a Schengen thing. I'd crossed from Switzerland into Germany without any visible border and I didn't know that the blue/green road designation has exactly the opposite meaning in Germany than in Switzerland...
It's striking what a well-built road the Autobahn is. You could put a full martini glass on the dashboard, and even above 100mph you wouldn't see it spill. Back in my younger days I went similar speeds on American roads, and the construction quality just isn't the same.
Germany is a bit bigger than New Mexico, but a bit smaller than Montana. If it was a US state it'd be 5th by size.
(Those of us who grew up when there were two Germanies knew it as even smaller - only 2.5% of the US' area...)
I learned this when being berated by my German hosts about the fact that you could at that time mail a letter "anywhere in the country by 4pm" and have it delivered the very next day, as an example of how efficient the Deutsche Post was.
We'd usually make up by drinking some good Weizenbier, so it was all good.
This was the biggest difference I noticed while driving on the Autobahn; driving in UK and doing 80-90mph, you get used to looking in the mirror and judging how much time you have to overtake, cars in the distance probably won't be doing much more than 20mph more than you.
On the Autobahn I found it much harder to judge how much time I had to overtake, as they could be doing 50+mph more than me, and they'd go from barely visible in the distance to very close much faster than expected.
Nobody is forcing you to drive that fast ;)
On the right there are all the trucks, which aren't allowed more than 80km/h.
On the left all the speeders going as fast as they like.
In the middle you get along with 120-140km/h.
I used to think autobahn and specifically the lack of speed limits was a great design and that British top speed of 70mph (110km/h) was somewhat dated. Now, having driven about 50K miles (80K km) in Germany, mostly on autobahns, I prefer the design of British motorways.
First the signage. On German autobahns it is extremely easy to miss a speed limit sign. The signs are the same size as regular "slow" road signs and often displayed only on the left side of the autobahn, they are very difficult to spot from afar, can be blocked from view by other vehicles and easy to miss when momentarily concentrating on the situation developing on the road. The speed signs are almost never repeated. On the contrary in UK the signage is done with much better understanding of how humans operate: motorway signs are bigger than their regular road counterparts, easy to spot from afar, installed in clear view on the both sides of the motorway, often repeated a few hundred meters later.
Then the speed limits themselves. They are far from thought through. For example a no speed limit stretch can suddenly, without any apparent reason, have a 80km/h (50mph) limit sign, then 300 or 400 meters later (quarter mile) another sign removing any speed limit. This leads to quite a lot of sudden breaking and many drivers ignore the limit slowing down only to 120km/h or so. Another example would be a "end of all limits" sign after a long 130km/h stretch in the beginning of an steep ascending stretch, followed with the 100km/h limit a mile or later on the top of the hill. Literally encouraging unaware drivers to pointlessly burn fuel accelerating up the hill.
The top speeds can rarely be attained in Germany unless at night. Traffic and roadworks leave a few short stretches where one can go faster than 130km/h. But this leads to constant acceleration and breaking and many many emergency breaking. Chain accidents are very common.
Cruise control is pointless due to constant speed adjustments. Adaptive cruise control doesn't work well either as it requires a certain distance to the car in front to operate safely, but overtaking from the right is very common and most German drivers hence leave a very short distance, essentially tailgating.
I find that the UK system, there traffic progresses steadily at a constant pace of around 70..80mph to be safer and less tiring.
German roadworks, including non-essential, are scheduled with little or no regard to the expected amount of traffic (e.g. public holidays, peak traffic hours etc). In UK system this type of planning gets a lot of consideration.
Diversions on Ferman autobahns are cryptic, signage is very scarce and they are practically impossible to follow without supplemental info (i.e. satnav). Diversions in UK are clearly marked and much easier to follow.
UK rest areas (services) are head and shoulders above their German counterparts and include free toilets.
All in all, I believe, German autobahn network is great, but UK motorway network had much more consideration for how humans work put into its design.
The first speeding ticket I ever received was from doing 270km/h in my old 2003 Porsche Boxster S I had back in 2013. They took a photo of me, and said that I am "accused" of speeding, and would I very kindly like to send them my personal details to some office in North Germany.
I didn't bother, and they also didn't care to follow up.
[1] https://de.statista.com/infografik/16725/tempolimitregelunge...