[nathanbedford]

“It’s a lifesaving law,”

As someone living mostly in Germany for nearly 20 years, I find this hard to swallow.

Not every part of the autobahns here are without speed limits but a good portion of them are. When a speed limit is posted I believe is respected far more than it is in the states.

I think the practice here in Germany is by far the superior one. It puts the emphasis on car and driver rather than on speed. My eldest son has just gotten his German driver's license and it cost us about $2000 and it cost him many many hours of study and many, many kilometers driving with an instructor to fulfill driving experience requirements. Believe me, the course is arduous and the milestones are demanding.

I have no doubt that the result produces a far superior driver on average in Germany than in the United States where the written tests are just silly and driving tests are perfunctory.

More, car inspections in Germany are very thorough indeed and the cars are on the road in Germany are on average simply safer than those we allow the roads in America. I was stopped last winter in a routine stop and police measured the thread in my tires and made me produce the safety vest, the emergency yield sign, and my medical kit. There are fines for being on the road without them. Everyone takes seriously the need to buckle up.

So when you see a Mercedes bearing down on you on the autobahn doing about 180 to 200 km an hour it is a good idea to stop picking your nose and move over to the right. It is a very bad idea to flip any other driver the bird, that might cost you a couple of thousand euros.

[rarestia]

European-style driving tests and licensing laws in the US would dramatically reduce traffic fatalities among other things. The amount of time, effort, and most of all, money, are so great that NOT doing well is a waste of all of those things.

We wouldn’t have ADD-drug-addled kids text messaging while changing CDs and talking to their friends on a Bluetooth headset while driving. Look no further than roundabouts as an example. Give American’s straight lines and they can sort of get around. Throw in a roundabout and you’ve got a conglomeration of amateurs like a southerner on a New Jersey highway in a blizzard!

[Richard Kimball]

IIRC, Germany also has laws against eating, talking on a cell phone or anything else while driving.

Germany, though has around 82 million people in an area the size of Montana. Long distance driving isn't as necessary as here in the states.