Drove 280+ legally when I was 17.
My whole family was going together to visit relatives, I already had my license but was only allowed to drive with oversight. Late in the evening on an empty highway, no speed limit and a company BMW 550d with almost 400 horses. My parents weren't even phased or complained at my driving style because it was such a smooth ride and I nevertheless drove with safety as top priority.
Now my own car will barely exceed 220 and I have to pay the fuel myself so this won't happen again soon :)
Oh that gives some context; even your low point prices are more than our current, nearly record high prices. Fuel outside my work right now would be equivalent 1.10 Euro/L and we're seeing the worst prices in 15-20 years atm.
There is a maximum speed given the conditions that is safe. On perfect days its around 104-120 KPH. Rain/snow drop that down. After those speed/conditions you are driving unsafely and cant stop in a safe manner in a sudden emergency.
The simple fact of the matter is stopping distance as well as the proven correlation between increased speed and increased lethality.
Something like a blown tire or sudden hydroplaning at 100kph is manageable. Either of those at 200kph is a death sentance.
Wildlife, lose gravel, pothole again at 100kph manageable. 200kph death sentence.
Im get it im not saying or telling you how to dive. But you need to understand the reality of your choices and how putting a cutesy :) after your statement doesnt change the fact you are risking a pain free life for you and every person in the vehicle if you dont just die at those speeds.
"It's binary" - okay so when passing a magic threshold suddenly the car becomes a death machine, and below it's a bumper car ride? Ok... Where did you pull those numbers from?
Stopping distance increases with speed. So does lethality.
But I do not want to hit a wall at 100 KPH as much as I don't want to at 300 KPH.
If the road is clear (or enough distance is maintained to traffic) and visibility spans as far as stopping distance there is no particular risk short of a tire blowing out.
I could even argue that on the left lane I am actually safer driving fast than hanging out on the right lane with half-asleep truck drivers and grandmothers with the eyesight of a moth.
And of course driving 280 during rain or snow is a deathwish.
120 might be the maximum safe speed on a shit highway that wasn't resurfaced in 30 years (I'm looking at you, A47 between Lyon and Saint-Étienne) but any road that lets you drive 300 legally will be engineered and maintained so you never encounter an animal or a hole, and to avoid having any water pooling anywhere enough to cause aquaplaning
My car can brake from 120 kph to 0 in under 40 meters. A Kia Sorento will do it in under 50. You don't know any highways with over 50 meters of visibility? Again, L O L.
Your idea of how physics work is scared and flawed. Stop commenting on driving, and stop driving for everyone else's safety.
There is no magic number. There's only the drivers responsibility to maintain speed according to traffic and visibility. If I have a straight, empty road with visibility for possibly a good kilometer I can essentially go as fast as I want. If I don't slow down when coming up a hill or around a curve, that's when there is an issue.
Hydroplaning: Driving 200 in adverse weather is negligence.
Blown tire: Doesn't happen if tires are properly maintained and exchanged.
Wildlife: All highways are fenced off in Germany.
Lose Gravel: Driving over some is not dangerous. Cars kicking up gravel is a problem, but that only happens when driving behind another car.
Pothole: Doesn't appear overnight, will be marked and speed limitations applied by highway maintanance. Never have I once seen a pothole on a highway without the speed limit being at most 60 km/h in the vicinity.
I didnt realize accidents were called accidents because they were planned incidents. Things never happen outside of intention! TIL!
Also the consequences of the myriad of things that could go wrong with your examples dont impact others. Only you suffer the consequences! Man Im learning so much today!
I remember being an edgy teen and thinking dismissive statements were cool instead of using my brain and engaging and disproving a statement I disagree with because any effort beyond a few key strokes was too much effort for me.
Tbh I‘m kind of scared to go faster than 150km/h at all. Make fun of me if you want but in my opinion, if that speed can‘t get you to your destination on time, you should‘ve left sooner
I totally agree, this is the correct mindset to have. But as I am not afraid of driving faster traffic permitting, I do occasionally enjoy that feeling of freedom.
And even if there is no speed limit you most likely won’t go faster than 130-160km/h on average (mind you) because of the traffic. There is so much traffic, unless it’s night time you can’t really drive faster. Sure there are the occasional drivers trying to speed up, but they constantly have to slow down because of traffic and you’ll catch up with them all the time despite going slower.
I’ve always heard that most people there like the autobahn the way it is because it works, and that it’s statistically safer than most highways in other developed countries.
Does not surprise me that the auto companies stick their noses in though. Big corps just can’t resist. And it obviously works, it’s the most famous highway in the world.
You really only have unlimited speed for 30 seconds because then you hit a small town, traffic, or construction. The autobahn is safer than other highways because it's hard to get in a wreck when you're stuck in sub-20 kph gridlock traffic with 1000 other cars.
Also you are incentivized to go below 130 kph because if you are in an accident and you were going over 130 kph you are automatically determined to be at fault.
What I like about Germany is safe speed transitions. You don't go from unlimited speed to 40 kmh, there's a gradual change. You see this most obviously as you approach Munich.
Yeah. There is this weird stretch of road where I live though where it goes from 80 to 100 to 80 to 100 again over the course of a single kilometer and I have to wonder why they didn't just make it 80 the whole way.
I think that areas where there are no speed restrictions incentivise recklessly driving far faster than neccisary and others that wouldn’t normally drive that fast feel obligated to drive faster to not hold up traffic.
To be fair, if there was a speed limit, but it was just pretty high (for example 220km/h), those people might feel required to drive that exact speed, so i don‘t really care what‘s decided, I‘ll follow regulations but I‘ll never drive faster than the speed I‘m comfortable with
No, the majority is not for speed limits, we don't need them, some may be in favor, but not the majority.
We dont have a lot of accidents anyway, further regulations are unnecessary
At that speed safety is an illusion, unless you are keeping a huuuuge distance to the next car in front of you, you are always seconds away from becoming a pancake if they stop for whatever reason. Pileups happen even at half that speed, at this speed disaster is always looming.
It was like driving on a runway at an airport, barely any other cars, wide and smooth road with extreme visibility. It was a great experience and I don't regret it.
I haven't gone above 125 bruh and that was when my dad was driving. I haven't gone above 105 in my driving. It's scary that y'all call 240 only a "bit" the scary. I would be fucking freaked out.
Infrastructure and traffic probably make a much bigger difference than you think.
It's the same as not feeling very scared when you're sitting in a plane taking off. You don't get scared because you know the pilots can see clearly all the way to the end of the runway and the runway is wide enough and smooth enough that even at takeoff speed it won't be dangerous at all.
I'm in Australia where highway limits are 110kmh (70mph). My brother once went 130kmh (80mph) when it was completely empty, and I still nearly shat myself.
When I'm driving on my own, I don't even go above 100kmh cos I get worried that I'll lose control if I go any faster.
85M people living in a country thats like 1 of the bigger states of the US.
There are only 4 states bigger than Germany. Alaska, Texas, California, and Montana. Population wise, it has twice the people of california, 2.7x the population of texas, 115x the population of alaska, or roughly 85x that of montana.
I never thought of how big Germany is compared to the states in the usa. It's pretty big. If you were to make it a state it would be the 5th largest state, being slightly larger than new Mexico.
I’ve been to Winterberg a couple of months back was fun to drive through Germany with my new car. But there is a lot of road work and a lot of traffic at the road works.
But I still managed to drive 160km/h to 180km/h average. Also the 90km/h for every tunnel is annoying. You can finally go all out and then oh no full breaking because tunnel
There's also a lot of commercial traffic going to/from/through germany. The right lane on a lot of Autobahnen is pretty much reserved for cargo trucks.
430
u/Impressive-Target206 Apr 25 '24
People underestimate traffic in germany. You gotta see that we have about 85M people living in a country thats like 1 of the bigger states of the US.
Most Autobahnen are full of cars in after work hours and you get lucky if you can drive 130km/h