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Comment by ivolimmen | Hacker News Reader

Rules and regulations make things difficult. It is even more difficult to people that operate on different ones on a regular basis but never read the rules. A lot of Dutch people often visit Germany. Driving in Germany is considered fun by most because they do not have a speed limit. Since we have a speed limit (nation wide) of 100 km/h people sometimes even go to Germany just to hear they engines roar. All of them do not realise that going over the Dutch speed limit in a different country means you Dutch insurance will not pay out when you have an accident. Very nice to encounter that after you wrecked your car...

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Even Germans don't know their insurance won't cover or just partially cover crashes happening > 130km/h (hint: Richtgeschwindigkeit/recommended speed is 130km/h everywhere, even on Autobahn stretches without speed limit).

[0] https://www.allianzdirect.de/kfz-versicherung/zahlt-die-vers...

This is only the case if they can show that the crash occurred due to you driving at an excessive speed. It's by no means the case that getting into a crash on the autobahn going 200km/h automatically means that you're not getting a full payout.

Oh also, if you have vollkasko this is very unlikely to ever be an issue unless you were being grossly negligent (e.g. fiddling with the navigation while going 200km/h+), you're covered against "regular" contributory negligence.

Wait, what? Really? What a daft insurance. So you're limited to 100km/h even on an unlimited stretch of the autobahn, with people going a lot faster around you? Or even somewhere like Poland where the limit is 140km/h and driving 40km/h slower than everyone else is an actual hazard?

I don't believe OP at all, I'm Dutch and never heard of this. Also the max speed limit in the Netherlands is 130 km/h, but between 06:00 and 19:00 it's 100 km/h (don't ask...)

Maybe OP is confused about the rules on unlimited roads like some German autobahns, there is indeed reduced payout above 130 km/h. But insurance not covering anything above 100 km/h is ridonculous

https://www.poliswijzer.nl/nieuws/gevolgen-verlaging-maximum...

Bij 50 over de snelheid ben je de lul. Hoe dat zit als je in Duitsland 150 rijd overdag waarbij in Nederland de limiet van 100 dan geld zou ik niet uitproberen.

Right, but OP said that if you drive over 100km/h OUTSIDE of Netherlands, you won't be covered by your insurance, which is obviously complete nonsense.

Note that it definitely isn't 130 everywhere, but also 120 in many places.

See: https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/verkeersregels/vraa...

No you're insured until 130 km/h. Our speed limit is 100 km/h but at night it is 130 km/h. And that the the legal limit.

Again, I cannot imagine that this could possibly apply outside of Netherlands. As long as the insurance covers you for driving abroad, and you follow the law in whatever country you're in, why would the speed limit in Netherlands matter.

This is new to me and I've been doing this very thing for a while (though not yet with an accident) - do you have a source for this?

It sounds like it's probably an insurer specific thing so I'd check the small print. I'd be very surprised if it was a legislative thing.

On the positive side I’m pretty sure that if you have a crash at 100+ km/h, then vehicle insurance is going to be the least of your worries.

Speed in a crash isn't a particularly big problem. The dangerous bit is how quickly you decelerate. Going from 100kmh to 0 over a few hundred meters and a few seconds by bouncing around the road and the barriers won't be much fun but you'll walk away. Going from 100kmh to 0 by driving in to something stationary will kill you pretty much instantly unless your car's safety tech saves you by giving you a cushion of air to decelerate in to.

Speeding isn't dangerous. Stopping is.

You are of course correct, but speed does give an upper bound on how quickly you decelerate. Anyways, I got curious and looked up accident statistics in Denmark [1], and only ~10% of accidents that result in fatalities happen on freeways (where speed is highest), ~56% happens on country roads (second highest speed and more objects that will decelerate you quickly) and the remaining happen in the city. The authorities estimated that excessive speed played a major factor in 43% of the accidents.

[1] https://www.vejdirektoratet.dk/sites/default/files/2021-12/D... (in danish)

EDIT: 43%, not 46%

Coincidentally, while fines for speeding are relatively lax in Germany, the penalties for underrunning minimum distances (which are calculated from speed) will wreck you. (Your driver's license will be decked pretty fast, and you can end up in prison too.)

Not convinced on the specifics ("Dutch speed limit"), but reduced or no cover for the Nürburgring is very much a thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nürburgring#Nordschleife_publi...

When crashing at a speed over 100 km/h, car insurance would be one of the last things that should worry you.

I have a really hard time believing that this is true. Assuming you don't have some special insurance, you should be covered on all public roads in the EU as long as you drive according to the laws of those countries.

yet more proof that insurance is a scam

Also there is actually a limit, the amount of roads where there isn't one gets smaller every year.

Ongoing construction works, local municipalities that want to reduce noise, others want to reduce traffic jams, end up with enough places limited between 80 and 100 km/h.

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