Quote:
Originally Posted by 6ixSpd
The drivers and roadways are designed to be able to travel at such speeds safely.
Lane discipline and driver awareness are eons ahead of anything you see in North America.
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Yeah, i'm going to give the unpopular response: sort of, kind of, maybe, not really.
Driver behavior, agreed, is better ... or at least more conducive to left lane passing and regimented freeway driving.
That said, in 2014, 40 min after I'd picked up my new indv M4, i was in the left lane and a guy one lane to the right put on his left signal, moved into my lane ahead of me, and kept going right over the shoulder into the concrete barrier almost flipping, kicking up a shit ton of rocks and dinging up my clear coat
Luckily I was only going about 100 at that point, coulda been worse. That's one of a ton of examples I've seen on the autobahn so - yeah - much better than the US, but I sure wouldn't say drivers are "designed" for high speed. the world is full of morons.
Roads .... ehhh I'm gonna somewhat disagree - but qualified. First, I was a civil engineer who's designed roads, albeit 25 years ago. The highway curves, etc are standard assumptions, speed, etc. so in that sense yes I'd
guess the autobahn roads are "designed" for higher speed (but who knows how much?
) With that said, I find them no higher quality / different than many US freeways, at least the ones I've driven extensively on, which is basically west of the mississippi. In fact, there are a ton of US freeways I'd MUCH rather drive high speed on than much of the autobahn (280 san jose to SF, 80 across Wyoming, etc - woot!
)
Anyway, beyond most German drivers adhering to left lane rules (and über alles prestige) - which simply avoids annoyances - I wouldn't say the German autobahn is oh-so-much-better road-quality-wise or people-wise for high speed driving.
The autobahn roads, in general, are somewhat better, but driver beware, it ain't no high-speed-run empty airstrip!
Now if we're talking German B roads? Then you better muthafuckin believe it - I once saw a road crew hand sweeping fresh black top in the middle of fucking nowhere. German B roads are the shit! In fact, if I'm going to sport tour anywhere in Germany, I skip the autobahn and go right to the B roads!
The autobahn is fun (during the 5% of the time there's no traffic), and you can drive super fast if you want, but I'd say in general, past about 120-130mph, you're probably overdriving your reaction time for the road design, and certainly for whatever stupid shit another driver is going to do.