Germany Gets Closer To Putting The Brakes On

[f-wolf]

Germany gets closer to putting the brakes on

October 29, 2007

Berlin, Germany - Boris Becker may be the most successful German tennis star on record but in one respect he shares an obsession cherished by millions of his fellow countrymen: he likes getting into a fast car, driving it to the nearest autobahn and simply putting his foot "through the floor".

Shortly before the 38-year-old celebrity had his licence taken away for a speeding in Switzerland earlier this month he told one of Germany's glossy magazines what he liked doing most in his free time:

"I switch on my car's sound system, put on a Techno CD ? then I just drive fast

Germany is the only country in the world where its products can be driven as fast as they can go

. I just do it to relax."

It is perhaps no surprise that Becker is referred to as "Brum Brum Boris" in Germany's tabloid press. It's not difficult to understand why he gets his kicks from motorway driving. Germany is not only the home of Audi, Mercedes, Porsche, BMW and VW but also the only country in the world where their products can be driven at the speed they were built to do.

The German autobahn is the planet's last bastion of unlimited foot-to-the-floor driving. The country has more than 12 000km of such roads and driving as fast as you like is legal on 6000km of the network.

Its only rivals in terms of limitless speed of driving are hardly an equal match: they include the winding roads of the Isle of Man, which has no motorway, a state in the American far West and a state in India.

The normal driver who visits Germany may experience only road works and endless traffic jams, on the most frequented sections of the autobahn system but get into one of Germany's high powered cars and drive along the brand new motorways recently constructed in the former communist east of the country and the seduction of high speeds becomes irresistible

Cars cruise at 220km/h on the new autobahns in east Germany

.

Yesterday, however, what has since become every Porsche driver's dream moved a step closer towards being shattered for ever. Germany's ruling Social Democratic Party voted in favour of a speed limit on the highways.

At a key party congress in Hamburg , the SPD voted by a slim majority in favour of a blanket 130km/h speed limit on the 6000km of the autobahn network where driving as fast you like is still legal.

Ernst Dieter Rossmann, a spokesman for the left wing of the party, which backed the idea, said yesterday that the limit was a logical response to global warming. "A speed limit is simply common sense. With the price of car fuel constantly on the rise, everyone knows that we cannot carry on as we are."

The SPD's initiative came only days after Nobel laureate Al Gore, during a conference on climate change in Berlin, criticised Germany for not having motorway speed limits.

Coalition government

The policy brings the party into line with the Greens and Germany's new Left Party, both of which advocate a blanket speed restrictions on all autobahns. The upshot is that Germany now has a de facto parliamentary majority which is favour of bowing to deepening environmental concern and abandoning speed limit-free driving.

However, the likelihood of a limit being imposed across Germany's motorway network before the country's 2009 general election remains remote. The SPD is in a coalition government with chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) but the conservatives remain opposed to the idea.

Ronald Profalla, the CDU's general secretary, reflected the strength of deep conservative loathing of any attempt to tamper with free driving: "The value of an across-the-board speed limit is out of all proportion to the restrictions it would impose on car drivers. The CDU is not going to be party to nanny-state rules."

Sigmar Gabriel, Germany's Social Democrat environment minister, said that despite Merkel's reputation as a champion of Green causes and her aims to cut carbon emissions by 20 percent, imposing a blanket autobahn speed limit would be difficult to realise in the short term.

"We won't find a majority for this with her Christian Democrats," he said.

Demand for speed

In an otherwise rule-obsessed country, being able to drive as fast as you can on the autobahn has become a potent symbol of what many Germans consider to be one of the few genuine freedoms left to them. As Der Spiegel magazine put it: "In a country where nearly everything is regulated, its a question of the joy one experiences in seeing the speed limit dropped ? even if its only as far as the next roadworks."

The *beep* did not invent the autobahn but they certainly realised it. Although they completed only 3800km, the *beep* created an almost insatiable demand for mobility in terms of fast cars and fast roads.

The German "Economic Miracle" of the 1950s and 1960s were boom times for the car and road-building industry. It was not until the world oil crisis of the early 1970s that the country's politicians were forced to impose a ban on Sunday driving and introduced a 100km/h speed limit for the duration of the crisis.

During the 111 days that the speed limit was in force, Germany's equivalent of Britain's Automobile Association, the 16-million member ADAC, got wind of government plans to make the restriction permanent. The immensely powerful organisation responded by promoting a slogan which has now become part of everyday German vocabulary: "Freie Fahrt für Freie Bürger", which translates prosaically into (Limit) Free Driving for Free Citizens.

The idea was dropped.

Safety has hardly been an issue either; in fact the government has mounted campaigns stressing how statistically safe the autobahn is in comparison to two-lane highways.

Edited 29/10/07 05:37 AM by f-wolf

[senna_T]

autobahn......

[mbjunior99]

That's just crap. 130kph is a joke!

[Kimberley Scott]

Its funny how the NT, after exhausitive research and safety considerations dropped there speed limits to 130 km/h, but everywhere else in Australia after exhaustive and safety research consider 110 km/h to be the maximum.

I think we should push to have Australias speed limits raised inline with NT.

Thread hijack I know, I cant see the germans putting up with this, but in this nanny world, it is inevitable that it will happen some time.

Scotty

[Guest]

I think it funny they want to lower it to 130 to stop global warming and not to reduce the road toll. Does that mean the germans acknowledge that speed doesn't cause crashes?

[seventytwo]

Its funny how the NT, after exhausitive research and safety considerations dropped there speed limits to 130 km/h, but everywhere else in Australia after exhaustive and safety research consider 110 km/h to be the maximum.

I think we should push to have Australias speed limits raised inline with NT.

Thread hijack I know, I cant see the germans putting up with this, but in this nanny world, it is inevitable that it will happen some time.

Scotty

Strange thing about the 130kph is how few people actually travel at that speed, most sit a 110kph. I think people have had that speed drilled in then for so long they are reluctant to go higher.

Have to say I love traveling at 130 in the T , it eats up the K's and its a very comfortable speed to travel at, The southern state should bring up the max speed on certain Interstate HWYs

[senna_T]

130 is a good speed, the T cruises well at 150 even, all this "research" has been done on a "private" road of course ( "something useless" )

[aiboart]

Autobahn

Europe

I recently spent two weeks driving in Europe and the US.

2,500km plus in Germany, Holland and Austria in an Audi A6 2.7 litre Turbo Diesel and a couple of days in a Lancia Epsilon in Rome.

Germany – nice land, nice friendly people, good food, all good really except… where are all the good German cars?

We drove the 450km from Frankfurt to Amsterdam on a Sunday morning and saw thousands of cars, most of them coming from the opposite direction. The total uber wagon count, 4 Porsche (3 average models and one early 80’s model), 4 Mercs and similar numbers of BMW’s and decent Audi’s. Seriously, I see more high quality German cars driving the 1.5km to the main road every morning. It did get better as we criss-crossed the country over the week but not by much. Even in the German mo-towns the scarcity of even medium end German cars was startling.

Conclusion, the high end German car is not the cheap birthright of those living in Europe that we here are led to believe.

Other observations.

A6 TDi station wagon is a way cool high speed people mover type of car – the XR6T is a super nimble RWD, darty fighter jet kind of thing by comparison.

The A6 off the line torque borders on violent.

Typical high speed cruise was 200kph, sometimes 220kph… in the wet.

One very rarely uses the brakes on the Autobahn, however when a bus pulls out in front of you at a closing speed of 70kph at 220kph you hope they work… this is the real home of radar anti collision systems...

Old decrepit transit vans with chalky paint cruise at 170kph.

You can write a Microsoft PowerPoint at 200+kph, but it gets a bits bouncy.

Fuel is the same price in Germany as it is here.

Cruising at 220kph is does nothing for the fuel economy, not even in a turbo diesel at 3000rpm or whatever.

Station wagons and hatchbacks make up 90% of the fleet. Sedans are somewhat rare.

German autobahns are not billiard smooth super highways, nor are they all unrestricted speed areas. However, they are faster than here, and… they are typically full of people.

At certain times of evening, European cities are linked by a continuous conveyor belt made of trucks.

The interactive GPS and traffic system is great. When the similar system starts in Melbourne next year and in Sydney in 2009, Yeah!

They need and XR6T or F6 in Europe. There is simply nothing like it. The big RWD’s and uber cars over there are mega bucks.

Euro drivers are no better than Oz drivers. It is just everyone there is scared xless about coming unstuck or coming together at high speed.

Rome: everything you read about Rome traffic is true… it is a hoot. It is bonkers. It does not move quickly. The scooter drivers may or may not be touching your vehicle… it is that close. Many of the scooter drivers are beautiful young women, that, considering the traffic conditions, seem to be miraculously free of grotesque scarring.

If you use the sunroof you can fit almost as much luggage in an Epsilon as you can in an A6 station wagon – no not really.

About 1700 miles driving on the east coast, mid west and the west coast of the US.

A new Caddy with 250 miles on the clock. I know Caddie is now making some great cars and I expected this to be one of them. Instead we got some model that was a horror from the 1970s’. The styling cues.... The damper settings made me sea sick. I think it was a V8 front driver but I didn’t care. I hated this car. We all hated this car.

A Pontiac Firebird. This is a bigish V6 front driver thing. It changed my view of V6’s. I now I quite eagerly anticipate the Falcon V6TT – though the I6TT would be still better. The Pontiac was good thing. I liked this car. My colleague liked this car. The V6 was way cool. FWD handling was fine for safe high speed touring.

A Pontiac something or other – Impala. This was a zombie car. It moved but it lacked a soul. It deserved to be impaled.

A Pontiac GT (I think). Looked like the Firebird. Good thing. Shuddery brakes.

American Road stops are simply amazing, giant, super clean, palaces of community involvement and goodwill. The country is amazing.

Regards,

aa

[Lord Cyric]

I am praying that this doesn't happen before 2009. I'm planning a little European Drive after hitting England with The Fanatics for another Ashes Series and those Autobahns are a key German attraction (plus the Nürburgring!).

Please let German pride hold onto this holy grail for a little while longer.

[senna_T]

your in luck LC Chancellor Says "Not On My Watch!"

Bravo, those crazy germans!