Autobahn Driving

Nov. 26, 2001.

What's it like driving in Germany on the Autobahn you ask?

It is a most humbling experience...

Having gotten accustomed to driving here in the Vancouver, B.C. area with a lot of bad incapable drivers, over-enforcement by police, comparably low speed limits the Autobahn is a real wake-up call to say the least.

Pictured above is the rental car we had while we stayed in Germany. It was equipped with a 1.8L inline 4 cylinder 16 valve motor with a 5 speed manual transmission.

The Autobahn varies in speed limit from 60 & 80kph in construction zones to normally 120kph and if you see the 120kph sign with gray angled lines drawn through the 120 number it means "unbegrenzt" or unlimited speed. This is where the fun starts.

With the 120kph speed limit most drivers cruise at 140-160kph average. No kidding! Of course you have your little VW Polo's that drive at the limit and other older vehicles and trucks that are speed limited.

When you hit the unlimited speed areas of the Autobahn generally the average speed will still remain 140-160kph and we generally cruised at 170-180kph. We did hit 190kph quite a few times and on one occasion 210kph. Everything over 180kph starts to move pretty fast. It took us a day to get used to speeding without the stress of being bug-eyed looking for law enforcement.

Never-the-less it was quite humbling to be driving at 180kph and have a fat Mercedes go by being chased by an Audi or BMW both going upwards of 250kph. Wow.

We were actually quite surprised by the complete lack of police vehicles on the Autobahn. We spotted only two police cruisers in 4 days of Autobahn driving.

I will post some speedometer pics and perhaps some video footage of driving at speed on the autobahn but it won't be posted for at least a week.

Click here for a video of driving on the A1 towards Lubeck at just over 180kph. Check out how fast the tripmeter is clicking over at that speed. Please download this to your computer by right-clicking on the link and selecting "save-as" and saving it to your harddrive.

Having experienced this sort of "free" driving at speed it almost makes our local B.C. driving experience one of a "gestapo" police state the way traffic enforcement officers target vehicles that are hardly exceeding the posted speed limits under ideal driving conditions.... hell, I was driving 180kph in the dark for god sakes.

Our biggest problem in this province and country is a severe lack of driving skills exhibited by the drivers here. It's almost appalling. The whole motor vehicle licensing system should be overhauled, with a mandatory performance driving training course.

Are there more accidents on the Autobahn as compared to other large highways? NO.

That's my 2 cents on the subject.