[PRCo] Highway Speed Limits

[Joshua Dunfield]

On 12.07.2013, Fred Schneider <fwschneider at comcast.net> wrote:
> There are prejudices everywhere, aren't there.   I remember a waitress in
> Switzerland who could simply not understand a German speaking fluent hoch
> Deutsch … I could understand him but she could not.   I think it was a case
> of he isn't speaking my dialect so I don't give a damn … she may have
> considered him a lesser being because anyone who spoke hoch Deutsche instead
> of Schweizer Deutsche didn't come from her country.
>
> I wonder how the Germans feel about the Americans after more than a half
> century of one to three U. S. divisions encamped in their country?  How
> would we feel if another nation had a military presence in Pittsburgh for
> almost 60 years?   I don't think we need to answer that, do we?

The non-military population of KL is around 100,000.  Plus about
50,000 military.  The base (rather, bases, since we have Landstuhl,
Ramstein, Dänner Kaserne…) has its own economy to some extent, but
it's deeply connected to the region.  Love-hate, like any subculture.
Imagine the reaction from lifelong residents of the East End if
Pittsburgh's universities vanished.  Students are, at times, not
unlike an occupying army.

> Am I surprised that a German would try to entrap an American in K-town, a
> city that for years has been 50% American?  Hell no.

The Americans' cars generally have the same "KL" plates as the
locals'.  So the targets are mostly Germans from out of town.  (Not
saying they wouldn't *want* to make an American get a ticket...)

-j.

> That would be no different than someone in Lancaster, Pennsylvania wishing
> the New York tourists would go the hell home in the summer.
>
> On Jul 11, 2013, at 5:16 PM, Joshua Dunfield wrote:
>
>> On 11.07.2013, Fred Schneider <fwschneider at comcast.net> wrote:
>>> There was also an interesting news item floating on the internet this
>>> week
>>> …. German politicians about to put speed limits on the remaining portions
>>> of
>>> the Autobahn (-en) that have no posted limits.
>>
>> Really?  They made some noise about that a couple months ago, but it
>> sounded like it wasn't going anywhere, despite the usual evidence that
>> it would save lives.
>>
>>> My own opinions about those high limits?   The fit a lot better in a
>>> nation
>>> like Germany than they ever would here because the Germans were not
>>> allowed
>>> to teach their own kids how to drive.  ...  The German highway
>>> fatality rate is 15% lower than the US (that's fatalities per vehicle
>>> mile)
>>> in spite of the fact that they have 6.6 times more people per square
>>> mile
>>> than we have.   I think that says something for better training and
>>> better
>>> acceptance of rules.   Rules?   It isn't a cat and mouse game like here.
>>> If the speed limit is 80 km/hr, they don't shade it upward by 10 or 15
>>> like
>>> we would.   They accept the rules.
>>
>> No question that German drivers are far more competent than Americans.
>> And they follow the rules, more or less.  The 30 km limit, which
>> applies to most streets in Kaiserslautern, isn't followed terribly
>> well.  A number of streets (like the one I live on) are
>> "Verkehrsberuhigter Bereich", traffic-calming zones, where you're
>> supposed to drive "as slowly as possible, in no case faster than 7
>> km/h".  7 km/h is a brisk walk.  No one actually follows that.  The
>> nicer drivers (in practice, probably the ones who *live* on those
>> streets, and don't want to annoy their neighbors) will go 20.
>>
>> When I see exceptionally bad driving in Kaiserslautern, I assume it's
>> an American from the base.  I gather it's not entirely trivial to get
>> the US military's European driver's license, but it's got to be easier
>> than going to German driving school.  If you just happen to be
>> American, and not military, many US states have reciprocal agreements
>> that let you exchange your state license for a German license...which
>> never expires!  The wisdom of letting someone with an American level
>> of driving education drive on a highway at 240 km/h, perfectly
>> legally, escapes me.
>>
>> The funniest story I have, though, is that Kaiserslautern drivers have
>> a reputation for tricking outsiders into getting speeding tickets.
>> There's a major street with a 50 km limit; it has speed cameras.
>> People from out of town tend to speed on it (I'm sure the locals did,
>> too, until the cameras were installed), and supposedly, some local
>> drivers will watch for out-of-town cars behind them (you can easily
>> see where a German car is registered from the first letters of its
>> license plate), and as they approach a speed camera, the KL driver
>> will slow down just enough to goad the following car into passing, but
>> not enough to allow the following car to stay under 50.  Ka-ching!
>>
>> -j.
>>
>>
>>
>>
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