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Comment by ExoticPearTree | Hacker News Reader

Why would you want to take the fun out of the Autobahn?

Q.E.D. (regarding the mentioned intellectual and rational quality of the debate)

You are either German are never driven a German autobahn. Cars racing at 200kmh+ just 30cm or so from you is not fun anywhere.

I'm in Germany for many years and drive tens of thousand kilometers across western Europe every year.

It is a rare sight that you even cross someone going at 200 km/h. First there are continuous construction works on the roads. Then you need to remember the constant traffic jams just about everywhere.

The picture on that article is from the autobahn in Frankfurt with direction to Darmstadt. It is one of the few places with 4 lanes where you can speed at your hearts content for about 10 kilometers and then slow down. This if you are lucky that slow drivers go the right-most lanes, often that doesn't even happen so you have to slow down again.

The only exception are fridays when driving to East Germany and Poland. On those roads you can speed and the large majority of them are just trying to get earlier home and enjoy more time with family.

Quite frankly, the most dangerous road in Western Europe have got to be French highways. In those you get young kids doing all kind of dangerous moves and speeding right behind you without respect. German drivers are noticeably more mature, you drive fast but with experience without thrills.

I'd take the French highway over the Autobahn any day. Yes it costs money, but people are driving in a much more civilized manner and they are well maintained.

I'm sorry but you certainly never had to cross France from one side to the other in recent years.

My favorite highways are the Spanish ones. You can drive for hours completely calm without a worry in the world. Very long straight roads with calm people driving. It is a complete breeze to drive for hundreds of kilometers without stressing you. The only problem is when driving close to urban centres over there.

If you look on statistical data, you will see that France keeps increasing the death on the roads since the past ten years, whereas Germany keeps lowering: https://etsc.eu/euroadsafetydata/

Thanks for the statistics, that's interesting. It can also be misleading, from what I could find, less than 10% of traffic deaths occur on motorways vs. rural/city roads and motorway deaths have actually been decreasing in France steadily since 1990 (this is only from a quick Google search).

Edit: According to the OECD itf (random source I found on the internet ;)) Germany had 317 deaths on motorways vs 201 in France in 2022.

https://www.itf-oecd.org/sites/default/files/germany-road-sa... https://www.itf-oecd.org/sites/default/files/france-road-saf...

> You are either German are never driven a German autobahn. Cars racing at 200kmh+ just 30cm or so from you is not fun anywhere.

I am not German, but I drive in Germany frequently and I find it liberating when you see the all restrictions lifted sign and I can just floor it for the pure fun of it.

At first I found it pretty intense, but then when I saw space wagons doing 200+ with kids in the back I calmed down and its business as usual now. I just need to remember not to flash slower drivers to signal them to get out of the way.

And this is what upsets me, the no limit Autobahn is part of Germany and now under the guise of climate fight someone wants to take this away from people that actually enjoy it.

> Cars racing at 200kmh+ just 30cm or so from you is not fun anywhere.

Funny that this only happens to people who are advocating for a speed limit. Maybe you should stick to the center of your lane which should be at least 2.50m on the Autobahn. With an average car with a width of 1.80m (VW Golf for example), there should be even 35cm space to the left side of your lane.

there excesses but it is great to drive your own velocity. I feel comfortable at 150km/h other drivers with sportier cars drive safe at 180 km/h

But I have to share the same street at my usual 120 max speed I am used to.

I can just say for me German autobahn with its rasers and semi hidden police vehicles around every other corner is always a scary experience. I honestly felt more safe in Bangkok on a scooter than some of these public racing tracks near Munich.

Because it is meant to be for save transportation not a track for speeding sports cars.

Why not drive at any speed, if behavior is consistent with the speed and safety? There are people driving excessively fast or near other vehicules or switching lanes dangerously on any roads: that should be the focus, not people driving faster but also respecting others on the road

because it isn’t consistent with speed and safety. there is no need to have opinions on this, there are statistics and comparisons made with any other country and they are 100% not if favour of no speed limit, easy. it’s simply a lobbying issue by car makers in Germany and that’s all there is to it.

I wouldn't consider a BMW 3 Series or a Mercedes C Klass sport cars by any definition.

I'm not a car person so I had to look it up. Wikipedia says the former can do 0–100km/h in 3.9 seconds and tops out at 302 km/h (depending on which version you get within that series of course).

There's F1, race cars, and street-legal sports cars. To me, this sort of performance is on par with the latter category (as one never needs either of those specs in regular driving) and I can definitely see someone calling them a car capable of behaving like a sports car.

I would.

cause it’s a public facility financed by my money and it should serve the society and the country. go pay a ticket for a race track and enjoy your version of fun if that’s your thing.

It is also financed by my money. Driving faster or slower should be the responsability of drivers according to their needs.

There were votes on this topic, your opinion is a minority which by large portion does not even drive cars at all.

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-majority-want-autobahn-speed-l... one from 2021, this year the surveys I saw in two different places said over 67%.

Be factual, there were dozens of surveys on the same topic that voted opposite to that, and this since decades.

Then try to get only people with drivers license to vote and you get a clear opposition to limits.

would you say flying airplanes faster or slower should also be responsibility of the pilots? what about speed boats within the city, should they be allowed? why on earth moving tonnes of metal at high speeds should not be regulated? considering 1,5 million people die per year from moving this metal boxes at hgh speed (comparable to the amount of people who died from pandemic that stopped the world for a year btw).

Commercial passenger plane speeds are not dictated by regulations. They fly in the most economical way for the company. Private planes fly as fast as they need to. Airplane speeds are only dictated by ATC when you're on approach or departure to maintain separation in a busy area or for noise abatement regulations.

Buses will not do 200kmh not because nobody can build a really fast bus, but because it will not be great for passengers to go from 200 to 50 really fast :) Basically same as with planes, passenger confort is the priority.

Anyway, if you would read up on Autobahn death statistics, very few deaths are related to over speeding.

If you mean vehicles transporting hundreds of people, regulations on speed are very similar to them on the road. You won't see a bus speeding at 150 Km/h.

If you mean private vehicles, you'd be surprised how even more lax are the regulations for private-owned airplanes. It all depends on the class of your airplane. Speed limits apply mostly on air traffic control direct indications and things like being on the vicinity of airports/corridors.

So yes, flying faster or slower is responsibility of pilots to a great extent of their own travels.

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