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DRIVING IN GERMANY

4th January 2001, Page 25
4th January 2001
Page 25
Page 25, 4th January 2001 — DRIVING IN GERMANY
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To get a better idea of the German driving experience, we decided to forego the pleasures of air travel for this running of the 1000 Point Test, travelling instead by road. As it turned out, the road journey via Eurotunnel took barely any longer, door to door, than flying would have done. Having cleared Belgium as darkness fell, heading south on the A69 main route from the Low Countries to Italy, we soon encountered one of Germany's highway idiosyncrasies, which is helpful for car drivers but utter frustration for truckers: the proliferation of two-lane autobahns with a noovertaking rule for anything over 7.5 tonnes.

These are not just localised measures to deal with specific road limitations, but continuous restrictions for dozens of miles at a time. Later in our visit we would encounter the situation from a truck cab on the A6 out of Stuttgart. This effectively becomes one lane for trucks, all travelling as fast as the slowest-85km/h if they're lucky—and one for everything else, including cars, light commercials and Eastern European heavies, all going as fast as possible.

The myth of unrestricted speeds on the autobahn is largely that. Although there are some sections of unrestricted road, a large proportion is limited to 130km/h, and much of the remainder is self-limited by virtue of the density of traffic. In reality, it is rare to find the opportunity to reach 160km/h in a car during the day. On the return journey across France, from Kaiserslautern to Crawley, the average speeds in each country were remarkably similar.

Germany has a reputation for being highly organised and prosperous, but the state of some of its roads is cause for con cern. Like the little girl in the nursery rhyme, when it's good, it's very, very good, but when it's bad, it's horrid.

Although Germany is indeed still prosperous, much of its wealth is being diverted to rebuild the desperately neglected infrastructure of the former East Germany, and the west of the country is suffering as a result. Some sections of major highways are so bad that trucks are subject to a 60km/h limit, partly to prevent further deterioration but also to stop them bouncing out of control.

But frequent parking spots on the main highways, with reasonably priced, reasonable quality food at the larger ones, combined with diesel pump prices of about 55p/lit, make the German trucker's life a relatively happy one.

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Locations: Stuttgart

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