Free Republic

A truck driver has lost control of his vehicle in Bavaria. The truck drove driverlessly in a serpentine way through a construction site, against crash barriers and over warning barges. The police tried to draw the driver’s attention with flashing lights. Without checking his tractor-trailer and in critical health, a truck driver left a more than 30-kilometer-long path of destruction on Autobahn 3. The 48-year-old had lost control of the truck late on Saturday evening “apparently due to a medical cause,” the police said. During the entire journey through Lower Franconia, the vehicle collided with the guardrail several times and...

Politicians have for years debated imposing an 80km-per-hour speed limit on the stretches of road which are famous for allowing motorists to drive as fast as they please. The Green Party has pushed for the move as it would help reduce CO2 emissions and make roads safer, but has so far failed to push a speed limit through parliament. But the party emerged as potential kingmakers coming third in the vote last week and could enter either a Traffic Light coalition with the Social Democrats (SDP) and Free Democrats (FDP) or a Jamaica coalition with the ruling CDU/CSU and FDP....

A speeding enforcement operation spanning the 5 Freeway from Kern County to the Mexico border nabbed hundreds of offenders Wednesday, according to the California Highway Patrol. Officers from 10 Southern California stations patrolled the freeway from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m., searching for motorists taking advantage of light traffic during statewide coronavirus restrictions, the CHP’s Santa Ana office said in a Facebook post. A total of 356 speeding citations were handed out, as well as 94 verbal and written warnings, officials said. Fourteen of the offenders were traveling in excess of 100 mph, while the fastest was clocked at 119...

Germany’s parliament, the Bundestag, has voted against a bill proposed by the Greens that would have introduced a speed limit of 130 kilometers per hour (80 miles per hour) on the nation’s highways. Out of the 631 votes cast on Thursday, 498 voted against the proposal. All members of the far-right AfD and the business-friendly FDP parties rejected the bill, and just two members from each of the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) and conservative parties voted for the proposal. There were only a handful of abstentions. “You’re defending a transport policy from the day before yesterday,” said Cem Özdemir, Green...

An eight-year-old boy is in trouble with police after they say he took his mother’s Volkswagen Golf for a high-speed joyride on one of Germany's famous autobahns. While that would be a big enough story on its own, the little speed demon had already been caught doing the same thing just a few days earlier, when police let him off without any citations. Remember this kid? He wasn't so lucky this go around as he'll face some genuine consequences for his adrenaline-fueled escapades. Police say he was busted the first time for a jaunt down the autobahn traveling at speeds...

His mom had told him not to ride on the autobahn (Newser) – An 8-year-old boy got a stern talking-to earlier this week when he took his mom's Volkswagen for a joyride on the German autobahn, but after pulling the stunt again—hitting speeds 112 mph—he's been put into psychological counselling, the AP reports. Dortmund police said Friday the grade-schooler stole the keys to the Golf around midnight and drove from his hometown Soest to Dortmund, about 30 miles away. Police say another motorist reported the child driving at high speeds in the city, saying "red lights and driving regulations did...

Are tolls going to be enforced on private drivers? The German government, along with every car owner in the European Union, will finally get a definitive answer to that question on Tuesday. If the European Court of Justice (ECJ) rules in favor of the tolls, all motorists will be charged to drive on German highways. The fees, known as "vignettes," are to be collected according to the time traveled on the autobahn. For cars registered in Germany, however, owners will get a credit deductible from the motor vehicle tax as compensation, meaning the costs would be offset, and ultimately, Germans...

The German government tasked a commission known as the National Platform on the Future of Mobility with finding ways to lower the country’s carbon emissions in order to meet EU targets. Although a final report is not due to be published until late March, draft proposals seen by news agencies on Friday are likely to face fierce resistance from citizens, industry and politicians fearful of angering either. Among the proposals featured in the paper were a fuel tax hike from 2023 onward, an end to tax breaks for diesel cars, electric and hybrid vehicle quotas, and a 130 kmh (80...

Full header "Germany’s car industry association officially confirms the truth of President Trump’s reasons for withdrawal from Paris Climate Accord". President Trump complained that the “unfair” terms of the Paris Climate Accord made it difficult for American manufacturers to compete globally. Protecting and expanding those jobs was the primary reason offered for his withdrawal. He should now write a thank-you note to Germany’s powerful auto industry lobby, the VBA (Verband der Autoindustrie), which just validated his argument. Reuters reports: Germany's powerful car industry said Europe would need to reassess its environmental standards to remain competitive after the United States said...

BERLIN — German Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt’s political future is tied to the success of imposing a toll on foreign drivers using the country’s autobahns, and despite being slapped down by the European Commission he isn’t giving up on the idea.“The tolls are coming,” Dobrindt told the Bild newspaper on Friday, following news that the EU and Germany are about to settle their dispute over introducing the payments. “I am confident that we will be able to close negotiations with the EU Commission on a positive note in November.”Dobrindt told reporters he expected tolls to come into effect after national...

A plan by the conservative German Finance Minister to sell off almost half of the country’s Autobahn roadway system to private investors has many Germans up in arms. Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative CDU party has put forth a plan to partially privatize the Autobahn network of roads across the country, according to a report by Der Spiegel on Saturday. His plan would involve selling private companies a share of up to 49.9 percent in a national company that would be in charge of construction and maintenance for the Autobahn. The company would be financed through...

A new survey published on Thursday shows that a majority of Germans are in favor of speed limits on the Autobahn—the country’s highways, which until now have been famously limit-free. The number of countries with no nationwide speed limit on highways is vanishingly small. Other members of the club besides Germany include Afghanistan, North Korea, and the Isle of Man, a British dependency in the Irish sea. Now pollsters from YouGov have found that 56 percent of the public would be in favor of a nationwide speed limit of 150 km/h on Germany’s 12,950 kilometers of motorway—but that lower limits...

I used to consider myself a very competent driver. One day back in 2010, I accelerated my precious 200 hp Volvo V70 out of a boring ferry departing from a Danish harbor and felt I was ready for the legendary Autobahn. Rather immediately though, I got stopped by a bunch of German highway police officers. "Most welcome to Germany, but take it easy", I got told (off). I soon forgot all about these words. 10 minutes later I nearly caused an accident because I failed to understand there was a que developing just one kilometer ahead of me. However, several...

Those who lollygag in the left lane of highways and interstates could be ticketed under legislation approved in the state House on Wednesday. House Bill 459, by Rep. Bill Hitchens, R-Rincon, was approved 162-9. The bill makes it a misdemeanor for any driver on a divided highway who does not move to the right when a car going faster approaches from behind.

The last surviving stretch of German autobahn built under Hitler is set to disappear, almost 80 years after it was first constructed. The four-kilometer stretch of road on the A11, northeast of Berlin in the state of Brandenburg, dates from 1936 and was part of Hitler’s massive motorway-building program of the Reichsautobahn.Newspaper Welt am Sonntag reported that the road survived Nazism and Communism and, despite some repair work, is still the original stretch from the 1930s. …

Germany is living up to its environmentally-friendly image by spending millions of euros on building bridges just for animals. Humans caught crossing them face a €35 fine. More than a hundred wildlife bridges are to be built in the next decade. Gerhard Klesen, a forester employed by the Ruhr Regional Association, spent a decade campaigning for an animal-only bridge to be built over a motorway in the town of Schermbeck in North Rhine-Westphalia. Man-made barriers such as roads and canals restrict animals’ natural movement, he said. That limits genetic diversity, which in turn leads to an increase in disease and...

The speed limit on the Intercounty Connector was recently raised from 55 mph to 60 mph. Should it go even higher? The road—also known as MD 200—was designed for speeds up to 60 mph. But that's not stopping one Washington Post reader from insisting the state should turn the ICC into the American autobahn. The German highway allows drivers many long stretches of road without any speed limit. In his letter to The Washington Post, Bethesda resident Brian Moore says it's a concept Maryland should at least consider:

German traffic police have been left looking like proper muppets by a British prankster. An Audi TT with British registration plates has been repeatedly caught speeding on roads in the Bavarian city of Bayreuth. But because continental speed cameras are set up for left-hand drive vehicles, the cameras keep missing the driver’s face. Instead, they keep capturing clear views of a manic Muppet-like toy which the cheeky Brit has propped up on his passenger seat. But police admit they are even baffled about the identity of the muppet. The No.1 suspect is Animal – the manic drummer from The Muppet...

The German Chancellor has snubbed the country’s green lobby, after she ignored calls for speed limits on Germany’s motorways. Yesterday it looked as if the 80mph blanket speed limit would be implemented, as the Socialist Party voted in favour of it during a key party congress. But, in an interview today the Chancellor, Angela Merkel spoke out, insisting that she would stand against the speed limit, despite the vote being won by members of her own coalition party. Merkel stated on German television: “It won’t happen with me”. Concern for the environment has prompted a renewed inspection of the de-restricted...

PFAFFENHAUSEN, Germany – Ask Marc Bongers about the wisdom of introducing a speed limit on the German autobahn, and he answers by impatiently revving the 435-horsepower engine of a specially modified Porsche. Slowpokes, he said, already spoil half the fun. Few things are closer to the German heart than the freedom to drive like a Formula One champion. Rule-bound and risk-averse in so many other ways, Germans regard driving on the autobahn at face-peeling speeds as close to an inalienable right. Now, though, Germany's love of speed is colliding with its fears about global warming, as it becomes clear that...