German speed limits

I think it was Mike_a who mentioned a few months back that the highest speed limited which is signed in Germany is 130 km/h. I also believed this to be the case, but if it ever was true, it ain't any more, there's a bit of the A2 near Wolfsburg/Königslutter which has a 140 km/h limit since a few weeks ago.

Vox have a short report about it on their website

140 km/h

Nice report.
Apparently it is supposed to avoid peolpe abruptly breaking to 120kmh when the traffic dictates, wonder if 220kmh to 140 is much better than 220 to 120kmh.

Very true but we don't want to argue about little things like that do we!

My last care did 220
the new one gets stuck at 170

But where can you actually go 220 kmh ?? Here down souf, there are hardly and motorways with no restrictions... But it seems to me that everyone doodles along at a nice 140-150 kmh anyway. So f**k the speedlimits. I just follow some poor git and let the cars past that want to go faster than that.
Drive a safe 20 kmh over the limit and you are in safe waters ...

One of the (few) advantages of living in the wastelands of NW Germany (aka Schleswig-Holstein) is that you get to drive at 220 km/h + for minutes on end. I knew there had to be some positive aspect! :$

A61 from Kerpen to bedburg... except right now as there are roadworks that and I have winter tyres on so am limited to 190km at the moment.

The A5 is a good bit of road, every time I drive on it I hit the speed limiter on my car (250kph) & giggle the entire time. Had a similar discussion with a mate from the Uk who said it was all bollox & no one ever goes over 180-200 anyway. Took this photo just to show him he was wrong. (Don't worry, I was watching the road, my passenger actually took it for me):

I quite like the fact that the litres per 100km needle has gone off the scale!

Jean-Pierre

My Escort used to do that every time I switched on the ignition.
All of the dials went off the scale and they reset themselves...

For the most part about only 30% of Germanys Autobahns are still
"de-restricted".

Unfortunately the days of cruising at 200kmh plus are long gone.As Horst and Hilda sit in the fast lane at 100kmh oblivious to the line of 300bhp uber-sedans bearing down on top of them.

Still Germany being a "transit" land doesn´t help with the millions of trucks from the East.

Its a shame,particularly the A5 which is almost completely 2 lanes still.
(except form Darmstadt to Frankfurt)
I know re-unification is the reason why Germany has not kept up with France or the UK,both countrys boast 3 lanes plus for most of the network:
Istil cant believe its only 2 lanes for most of Hessen.Isn´t that called a DUAL CARRIAGE WAY?

Still for all the Stau´s its still worth occasionally getting up at 4am on a Sunday morning and proving that 5th gear still actually works

Got the chance recently to drive a company M5 at said time to an indicated 290 kmh,they would have sent me to prison anywhere else!!

Yeah, that's what it was officer!

@JP, I don't pay for my own fuel, so I make it my mission to keep the L/100k needle as far to the right as possible. If it goes left of centre it means I'm not trying hard enough.

I was going to comment on the fact that the petrol gage was pretty much to the left!

And before anyone else points it out, yes I was driving with cruise control & my wash wipes did need refilling!

You can't in all seriousness compare the German motorway system with that in the UK and come to the conclusion that the UK is better, surely!
There is constant investment in German motorways whereas the investment in UK motorways since 1980 has been about £2.38. Even when German motorways are thick with traffic, there is still a sense that you're getting somewhere. From 07:30 to 09:00 and 16:30 to 18:00 you can forget driving on a motorway in the UK which passes anywhere near a town.

Jean-Pierre

Ever heard of the Leonberger Dreieck ??
A8/A81
No chance of even moving during those times mentiones.
My shortest route home is the Autobahn, my quickest is the normal roads...

Obviously there are exceptions, but that is not generally the case. I can drive from Frankfurt, well Hofheim, to Darmstadt in about 30 minutes and be there for 09:00 (about 30 km). Both are big towns and although there is quite a lot of traffic, there is enough capacity to keep the traffic flowing. I can also do Hofheim to Bonn at about the same time in 90 minutes and that's about 180 km. Can you imagine doing that, from one major town to another, in the UK? You may as well leave the car at home and have to put up with the smell of other people's farts on the train.

Jean-Pierre

Crap... Jean pierre...and you live around Frankfurt.!!!

Have you EVER driven the A3 between Wiesbaden and Offenbach!!!
Its STAU city all the way to Hanau.

Drive the A3 to Köln,i tried to count the Bau stelle once and literally lost count!

I drove from Dover to Bristol in 3 hours,enjoyed 3.4 sometimes 5 lane motorway.Sure the UK has traffic Jams as bad as Germanyin rush hour, but I was talking about lthe number of lanes.

It took me 2 hours to drive the 100km from Frankfurt to Mannheim this morning.

In paderborn there was a new stretch of Auto bahn built to link up the Autobahn to Hannover/Dortmund,about 20km long

They started it in 1985,it was finally finished in 1995,10 years for 20km...nice,that was because the money kept running out,so b###s##t there is little investment compared to Taxes taken.

Drive to Munich from Frankfurt,take the A8 from Stuttgart...its 2 lanes all the way with mostly 100km speed limit...

Oh and driving the M20 from Dover to London I saw them doing road repairs at 2am in the Morning using spotlights,if you see that in Germany let me know.

Well I drove on a bit of the A3 between Wiesbaden and Offenbach this morning at 8:30 and I was going about 160 (100 mph), so there couldn't have been that much of a Stau! It was the bit between Wiesbadener Kreuz and the A67. Obviously I don't know every stretch of motorway in the UK and Germany, I can only go by my experience.
As for road works, they are actually a good thing, it shows there is investment in the road system. I find that in Gemany they arrange the roadworks so much better, so that you rarely end up stopping when there are roadworks, and mostly slow down to 80 for a while then carry on your merry way. That's certainly not the case in the UK. Road-works = traffic jam. I suspect the repairs you saw in the UK were emergency repairs because they don't do anything until the road starts falling apart, then of course you have to do it straight away or you'll get sued.
Incidentlly I wasn't comparing investment with taxes taken I was comparing investment in Germany with investment in the UK.

Jean-Pierre

1) The A5 has 3 lanes from Gambacher Kreuz to Frankfurt, and a further three from before Karlsruhe to Bühl.

2) There are plenty of 3 lane motorways in Hessen. The A3 for example. The A66 west is currently beng upgraded. The A66 east from frankfurt to Hanau, large stretches of the A5...

3) There is another reason why the Germans don't really bother with three lanes. They just had a look at the system in the UK and realised its a waste of money. The majority of the UK motorway network has three lanes, but 90% of those on the roads only use the middle or outside lanes. :doh:

4) Dual carriageways are roads with crossroad junctions and traffic lights.

I do a lot of driving in Germany (and Europe for that matter) and recently quite often to Kerpen. Darmstadt to Köln takes me 1.5 hours on the A5 and A3 then another 30 minutes to Kerpen. Darmstadt to Dreden only takes me 4.5 hours and to Berlin I can do in 5 hours. Where there are no speed limits then I hit around 280 (and no, its not a Porsche) and keep it there. When a speed limit sign appears I do the speed limit. Darmstadt to London takes me 7 hours by car and tunnel and costs not too much more than flying as I can bring back a load of shopping (I have done this driving Friday, shopping Saturday morning and straight back, never again.)

Jean Pierre...,with regards to your drive on the A3 this morning,I will admit the roads seem a little quieter than usual these past few weeks.

I would put that down to the fact that a lot of Germans are skiing this time of year and the rest are at Carnival.

Maisfolocke... the A5 is 464 km long!

The A8 from Stuttgart to Munich IS a pathetic Joke 2 lanes 100kmh spped limit.

Not sure about up north remember the A2 and the A1 being staud up all the time with 2 lanes,but that was a few years back and dont venture north anymore,I know they wanted to improve things in time for the World Cup though.

The A8 Stuttgart- Munich has some 3 lane stretches plus the speed limit is mostly 120k not 100kmh drove along it this morning .The A7 south to the Allgaü has some stretches without speed limits, had my car up to 200 yesterday.

I've been doing the Frankfurt Munich run for almost two years, next week should be the last run, and about the only decent spot for speed is in the stretch before the A92, you've got about half hour or 3 high speed lanes. Beyond that you speed limits aside its really not safe to go Bevon 160 to 170 too much traffic.

I did hit 227 between Darmstadt and Frankfurt A5 once. The stretch by the Airport 100K they removed the speed camera, for safety reasons I figure, getting flashed at 4 in the morning (was doing 150) is a sure way to blind someone. Never did get the ticket.

They have had a Van right under the A3 underpass, saw and didn't click in, was on the other side of the fence and got blitzed, thankfully I was down to 120 when I got caught, still waiting for the ticket.

Rather surprisingly Rental Car speed tickets are returned with a note stating it was a foreign driver and that is the end of it. My sister in law got blitzed, I put her address down and they never pursued it, I would have figured being the owner I'm responsible.

Very amusing JP.

Ever seen cats eyes on a motorway here? Round this part of Germany they don't seem to have heard of them.
Illuminated motorway signs anywhere? I havn't seen any lately.
3 lanes anywhere, hmm, occasionally I find a bit of motorway they have widened, but forgotton to put cats eyes in whilst they were there.
Illuminated stretches of motorway? No, that would cost too much, or you could explain it away as havnig too much enrivonmental impact. (Before you all shout "but I know where there is an illuminated area" so do I, but hardly on the scale of the UK motorway system.

The systems are just very contradictory, you can travel at 250kmh in Germany (according to Mark, not that my car will ever go so fast) but it is just not safe enough.
The English system is good enough to be able to travel 250kmh, but you aren't allowed.

Was going to mention the CATS EYES,fantastic invention.
They have saved thousands of lives apparently.

Cant for the life of me work out why they dont have them here!!!

If its dark,foggy or drizzeling in Germany I find it really hard to see the road sometimes in Germany. As for the signs not being illuminated...

The Autobahn is seriously overated and anyone who thinks otherwise doesn´t get out much.
Sure the M25 is a nightmare in the UK,but then London is one of the Big three...London/Paris/NY.

JP,you been back to the UK recently...or you just jumping on the Brit bashing band wagon

Easy to answer. Because of the snowploughs. They don't last long when those snowploughs keep clearing the snow all winter ( yeah right, like we have all that snow all winter )
But I agree, cats eyes are brill. I really enjoy driving in the UK, as you can always clearly see the road.
Give the guy a prize that invented them...
If the road would have had them on, I wouldn't have written off my car 14 months ago ...

You're right, there are certain things about German motorways which I find illogical. The lack of cat's eyes is one. However I'm not really convinced about the need for a street light every 50 metres, it does seem like a waste of money and resources when most cars have headlights! Leaving aside the fact that if you're killed in a motorway accident, the chances are it's because you managed to find a lampost and wrap your car around it.
As for speeds, we all talk about only being able to drive 120 or 130 for parts of a motorway and how annoying that is. Bear in mind that the speed limit on all UK motorways is a maximum of about 115 and you will be flashed if you go any faster - it will also cost you a small fortune in fines and increased insurance premiums. But I'm getting away from the point. What was the point again?
Ah yes, there has been very little investment in motorways in the UK over the last 15/20 years as a deliberate government policy. Newbury tree-huggers probably didn't help the case for building more roads either as public enquiries and enforced evictions are an expensive and politically messy business.
The idea was that less people would buy cars if there weren't the roads to drive them on. Unfortunately this turned out not to be the case and the increase in car ownership in the UK continued just as fast in the UK as in other countries where they did invest in the road infrastructure.
To take up your last point that you could drive at the same speeds on UK motorways as you do here, well I disagree. There are stretches of UK motorway where you struggle to do UK speeds without your eardrums starting to bleed and your vertibrae being crushed.

Jean-Pierre

You're right, there are a few stretches that were probably built in the '70 when everyone loved concrete, so they have an expansion joint every 10 meters, but it tends to be the exception as opposed to it being the rule here.

Think cat's eyes were more of a discovery - apparently some guy was driving along and noticed his headlights reflecting in the eyes of a moggy in the street.

By all accounts, a guy driving in the opposite direction invented the pencil sharpener.

Percy Shaw, a Yorkshire lad invented them. (Cats eyes, not pencil sharpners)

Forgot to mention in my original moan, has anyone else noticed that the white lines on the roads here do not reflect as well the the english ones, and are not as durable?
I find driving in the dark much worse here as dipped headlights are not sufficient for lighting up the road, only when using main beams.

Quite a few years ago I did a trip through the states always I heard for miles and miles was clunk clunk clunk, drives you mad, I guess the lobbyist for the concrete industry don't drive :excl:

I love the autobahns in Germany.

Last time I was on a motorway on the Uk I was travelling from Birmingham Airport to Bromsgrove and there were speed cameras all over the place. Why oh Why.

I managed Frankfurt to Basel in less than 3 hours - that's faster than the ICE.
Love the 4 lane autobahn between Frankfurt and Darmstadt. 250km/h no problem.
Of course these are at times outside the rush hour.

This who found the Geman autobahns unsafe, just need to go on a driving skills course, IMHO.

The UK along with the Scandanavian countrys have the lowest car accidents and people killed in in a car accident per capita in the World.

Germany has a very poor record of accidents when compared with the UK.
You are more than twice as likely to die in a car accident in Germany as you are in the UK.
Only Greece,Portugal,France and the USA have a worse record than Germany.

Ironically the UK and Scandinavia have produced more F1/rally motorsport champions than all other nations put together

As far as the speed cameras are concerned,i agree the UK is out of control,
although according to the pistonheads only about 30% are loaded.

Still Blair and his loony left are trying to fix something thats not broken.

If your statistics are correct (and I haven't checked them) then it shows that restrictive speed limits does not reduce the likelihood of being involved in a car accident as the US has far more restrictive speed limits.

Jean-Pierre

It's as much a question of road (and junction) design as speed limits. Eg: lighting and visibility at junctions, clear signs, lane separation, etc... where the UK is light years ahead of Germany.

I've just driven back from Zurich on this road this morning, arriving in Frankfurt at 9am & had no problem. No stau's, no accidents, no problems. Was up to 250kph before I remembered my winter tyres shouldn't go over 210. Doh!

I have no problem with German roads, I spend less time in jams on them than I used to in the UK, and at least when you do get caught up here you sometimes get the chance to make the time up again.

I agree. But when people talk about road safety (especially in the UK) all they talk about is speed. As you say, there are so many other contributary factors which are at least as important.
Incidentally, changing the subject slightly, I think the hard-hitting road safety "commercials" in the UK are absolutely fantastic. If you've not seen it, there's one with a group of kids being filmed from a mobile phone all laughing and mucking around. It's got the typical jerky/blurred movement of a mobile phone and really gives the impression of kids having a laugh. Then one of them crosses the road looking in the wrong direction and get belted by a car. The tag-line comes up: "Every year 500 million (or whatever) children wish they'd given the road their full attention."
Apparently this ad wouldn't be allowed in Germany - too shocking.

Jean-Pierre

During the 70's fuel crisis, the speed limit on british motorways was reduced to 60 mph to conserve fuel. One of the side effects was that, despite lower traffic density due to the shortage and increased price of fuel, the accident rate on motorways actually went up.

This is mostly due to the personally perceived danger limit. The closer a person is to that limit, the more attentive they are. The reduction in the speed limit lead to drivers spending more time looking at the scenery, and concentrating less on driving. The result being that they were less likely to notice the pre-cursors to a possible accident, so it becomes an actual accident.

This is one of the reasons for the high accident rate in america. Drivers are not fully occupied with driving (additionally, on a five lane highway, the edges of the road are further away, reducing the perception of speed). It is inattentiveness which leads to the accidents. The death rate is higher, because american drivers do not like using sealtbelts, and prefer to drive large SUV's which do not have to be built to car safety regulations, or motorbikes without protective clothing/helmets.

It is also a fact that the vast majority of accidents (fatal or otherwise) occur at under 50 kph in towns, rather than at higher speeds on motorways, and mostly within the first or the last 500m of a journey.

While it is true that you are more likely to be killed hitting a motorway brige support, or diving under the rear of a stationary truck at 200 kph than at 50 kph, you are generally not allowed to drive at 50 kph on a motorway. The difference between hitting a solid stationary object 130 kph or 200 kph is not much for the occupants of a car. It is mostly a matter of luck if you survive either, although you may be slightly more dead at 200

Modern cars are generally very safe for the occupants up to 65 kph, because they are built to help the occupants survive that sort of impact. Although this does also help in some higher speed situations, most of the active safatey devices (belt strainers and airbags) don't get enough time to deploy fully in significantly higher speed accidents than 65 kph. For cost reasons, these systems are exactly layed-out to provide just enough protection for the occupants at 65 kph NCAP impacts to get a 4 or 5 star rating, which is good for the advertising dept.

It should be a matter of elementary physics to understand that the deployment time needs to be reduced in relation to the square of the initial impact speed. Therefore, at 130 kph impact, the airbags and belt strainers are only quarter deployed when you get to where they need to be, and your momentum is four times that at 65 kph. This means you will get quite a smack from the steering wheel or dashboard, and that is not counting the additional passenger compartment deformation which occurs at those higher speeds.

However, motorway accidents rarely involve hitting solid stationary objects. Mostly they involve "glancing" impacts to deformable objects, followed by spins or grinding along a crashbarrier, so the actual speed of impact bringing the vehicle to a halt is lower than the speed being driven

So we have a situation that, at the speeds where most accident impacts occur, the car occupants are pretty well protected against injury in modern cars. That cannot, however, be said for other road users, such as pedestrians, cyclist, motorbikers, or even the drivers of older cars.

It is not speed that kills, per se, it is lack of attention to speed. Just as there are no "killer roads", only drivers who have not adequately considered the nature of the road they are driving on, the vehicle they are driving in, and their personal reactions and skills behind the wheel.

The most dangerous nut in any vehicle is always the one holding the steering wheel.

That advert is shocking...but gets the message across.

There is another one for drink driving...makes me cringe everytime I see it. Two guys are sat at a table in a pub and eyeing this girl up, she turns round and walks towards them...but then she kinda head butts the table and lands in a heap on the floor dead...its as if they were in a car and had hit her...really hard hitting advert...but again gets the message across.

Heres a link to the one I was talking about...but seriously don't watch it if you're easily shocked!

http://www.thinkroadsafety.gov.uk/campaign...nload/crash.mpg

>>>>>This is one of the reasons for the high accident rate in america. Drivers are not fully occupied with driving (additionally, on a five lane highway, the edges of the road are further away, reducing the perception of speed). It is inattentiveness which leads to the accidents. The death rate is higher, because american drivers do not like using sealtbelts, and prefer to drive large SUV's which do not have to be built to car safety regulations, or motorbikes without protective clothing/helmets.<<<<<<

Might have something to do with the fact that you can learn to drive when you are 15 as well


In fact Dad can teach you drive,he might be a crap driver also.
I have also seen the driving test in many states and its a Joke.Many Americans cant drive a "stick" (manual)

The Latin countrys have poor stats because of that Firey Latin temprement.

Potugal and Greece,poor roads,poor driver training badly maintained cars.

Germany,not really sure as most accidents happen on the B roads where speed is not
the factor,I would put it down to teutonic arrogance and the "recht hab ich" mentality.
Also many towns have a lot of overkill with the trafficlights,some are extremely pointless
and not turned on to flashing amber in the dark hours,which of course leads to frustration.

PS: Lack of cat's eyes in Germany has nothing to do with snow-ploughs. Modern designs can cope with that. They use cat's eyes in other countries with as much or more snow than Germany.

Lack of cat's eyes and reflective road-line paint here has more to do with cost than anything else...

The road-building regulations here require those black and white posts to be erected every 50m or 25m, depending on road type, which do have reflectors on them. Then there's the cost of buying and operating those Unimogs with the post cleaning machines...

It could also have something to do with the fact that some people drive in excess of 250 kmh, which makes a cat's eye something of a hazard for a tyre. That would of course apply only to Germany and doesn't explain why other European countries don't use them (assuming they don't).

Jean-Pierre

By the way, Mike_A, it's good to see that you're back and posting interesting and considered posts. A couple of months ago some bloke was logging on with your user ID and posting bollocks

Jean-Pierre

Nope, cat's eyes shouldn't be a problem at greater than 250 km/h, there are much more extreme pot holes, bridge joints, repair patches, etc which those tyres have to contend with.

Seems he must have hijacked your profile too, J-P

I used to have a Suzuki Hayabusa, which was capable of over 320kph (and 0-200kph in 4.5 seconds). A recipe for a jail sentence in the UK, but an ideal machine for blasting across Germany on the Autobahns, you would think. However, I was surprised at the number of restrictions in place here. On a recent journey in my Alfa, from France to Berlin, I had exactly the same problem. So many stretches of Autobahn had limits, many due to the amount of roadworks, which seem to be never ending. The French roads were not only clearer, but had a far better surface. I think it's unlikely that you could beat the ICE for average speed across country, to be honest.