Yep, we do not have the wide ass shoulders on our Autobahn network. We also know how to merge using the entire merging lane and the zipper effect. In the USA, it’s cross the white line at lower speeds to create an accordion effect.
What would they do if it was five lanes each direction?
Everyone goes to the right, except the left most lane. They go to the left. This is independent of the number of lanes.
I’ve seen this happen, and it almost looked like that exact spot. I feel like this is between Berlin and Wittstock.
In America it would instantly be filled by cunts trying to cheat their way through traffic.
Even drivers in the US are good about it 99.9% of the time if there is anywhere to go, they do get out of the way and stay out of the way. There are heavy fines. And if the Amp-a-Lamps driver can get your plate number, the cops WILL go look for you.
Source: I spent nearly 20 years in Amber-Lamps and fire trucks.
In Germany, we have laws for that.
In america they have guns for that
But it’s still an issue.
…which are enforced?
Because that’s one major issue with the legal system of the USA.If you block the ambulance in Germany, you get punished nowadays.
Whether video evidence of driving through it without blocking an ambulance is enough? I don’t know.
Even trying to enforce the rules is a win in my book.
They are enforced.
Source: I spent nearly 20 years as a medic and a firefighter. And I have had cops arrest and ticket drivers for driving HUA, (Head Up Ass around emergency vehicles.) It’s an easy ticket.
Noice!
We literally have this. We call it the “shoulder”.
Right? Around here, each side of a divided highway has two travel lanes marked. There is a narrow shoulder on the left, and a wide shoulder on the right, either of which is adequate for emergency vehicles.
The intended purpose is to facilitate future construction. There is enough room on each side of the median for three lanes plus a narrow shoulder. They can put up a temporary k-rail median and repaint the lane lines to move a lane of traffic across the normal median. They can completely close a lane of traffic for repairs, while retaining at least two lanes (plus a narrow breakdown lane) in each direction.
Exactly. They have to split the red sea like this in countries like Germany because there is no shoulder. Even in the video you can see if they go off to the side they’re ending up in a ditch.
Nope, im pretty sure the cars on the right are driving on the shoulder. If you look at the opposite side, there is a shoulder that nobody is driving on.
Using a the shoulder for emergency vehicles is not as good, as they are usually smaller and they are the place where those with damaged vehicles should stop. This means you cannot go as fast on them as you can in the lane shown in the video.
I’d recommend going exactly the same speed on either, and it’s not particularly fast.
Going fast is kind of essential for emergency response vehicles.
There are shoulders in Germany as well, but they prefer that the ambulance drive through the middle lane.
And idiots try to drive on it to skip traffic.
A+ happy German narration.
Using emergency lights and sirens is vastly unnecessary.
It is clearly much more dangerous to the ambulance crew & patient. Not to mention the other people that might be injured in an accident related to an emergency response.
It is clearly much more dangerous to the ambulance crew & patient
How so?
Crash statistics clearly indicate the danger of emergency responses. It’s simple common sense to understand how dangerous it is to navigate a road full of drivers that can be unpredictable.
Easy to research the info. Go look.
So you’re pulling it out of your ass. Cool.
No, dumbass. Crash statistics are 2X for emergency vehicles running with lights and sirens.
You clearly don’t have the brain capacity to grasp simple logic.
GFY.
Correlation != Causality. If an emergency vehicle needs to get somewhere fast, it will run sirens and lights to drive faster. Faster verhicles are obviously more likely to get into accidents. Still, this seems like a reasonable tradeoff to keep response times low overall. I severely doubt that sirens and lights by themselves cause any significant accidents.
Main point is that running with lights & sirens is more detrimental to the patient vs. flow of traffic transport.
Again, simple concept.
Just include a single link. It won’t kill you
I didn‘t see any comment mentioning this, but not creating an emergency lane only 10 years ago was a huge problem in Germany. Then the government increased the fines massively and started a big awareness campaign. It took several years, but now it is the norm.
Intervention and change is possible as long as their is political will.
That push in Germany quickly got wider EU traction & it’s finally starting (5~10 years ago?) to be the norm in the main countries too (not just for when the traffic stops completely but even in cases of slow moving traffic like below 60 or maybe 80km/h).
Thx!
Interesting. I was going to reply that I have been in plenty of traffic jams on the Autobahn that did not have such a lane, but that was indeed more than 10 years ago!
Here in the UK we do something similar, though not until we see the flashing lights. We pull across as far as we can in order to allow as much space as possible.
That is the law in the US as well. TWICE I’ve seen someone ignore it and both times other citizens (in cars as well as pedestrians) bully the driver into following it.
Driver: I didn’t have anywhere to go!
Bike messenger: Turn into the fuckin alley or I’m breaking all your lights
Just the other day I watched some luxury SUV sitting dumbfounded in a left turn lane with an ambulance flashing lights and blaring the horn behind it. Oh yeah, the left turn lane was the one that led to the emergency room parking lot. I wish that bike messenger was around then
Bike messenger are the real police. They’ll give a homeless guy a sandwich a then turn around and beat the shit out of a pickpocket.
You do not fuck with bike messengers, they’re pissed off at the world and right to be. Plus they know all the escape routes.
i’m just trying to think of the synchronicity of this. i did the running sports in school because i got good legs. i did the kicking martial arts thing because i got good legs. i am doing the leg exercise midlife crisis thing because blah blah. i’m wondering if i should get some mall ninja throwing stars to go with my new angry midlife crisis this sounds fun
Okay but what if I have to take a major shit, is it cool if I skip ahead to the next exit? I get that the idea is everyone is making it safer on the off chance an emergency vehicle needs to go by, but we got this wide open strip, so if someone has a (minor) emergency, are they a jerk for taking advantage of it to get off the road, or…?
is it cool if I skip ahead to the next exit?
No, you will be fined upwards of 240€, lose your license for a month, and get 2 points on your license (8 points means you lose it permanently, you will have to redo the license and take a so-called “idiot-test” beforehand).
but what if I have to take a major shit
Great news, theres a ditch right beside where you stopped, and you said it was an emergency.
I watched a woman get out of her car during a traffic jam (on a packed freeway) drop trou and just piss in the road right in front of me. Didn’t try to hide to one side or open the doors to block the sightline. Just busted piss in the absolute middle of the road.
Either she was mad out of fucks or she took a dare. Didnt even wipe. Just hiked her pants up and got back in the car.
🤷
Nyo its not cool and in highways accidents, the ambulances will usually be followed by police and you will get pulled over and fined.
That’s crazy, all these suckers waiting while there is an open lane right there!!
There are easier ways to say you drive a Mercedes.
As an Austrian, this works good but not always so good as it should
so frustrating to drive in germany and then come back to the us with so many inconsiderate idiots around.
Honestly I blame speed limits. On the autobahn you know “if you’re slower, move over”. In the US, inevitably there is someone camping the left lane saying “I’m doing the limit so i have every right to use this as the long distance lane”
It still boils down to individual vs collective importance and values.
Buuut if they’re going the speed limit, how are you supposed to overtake them anyway? You wouldn’t break the speed limit, would you?
Ffffuuuuuu, I’d definitely download a car!
You’ll figure it out in 10 years when your old enough to get your license.
Old wisdom says at any time you can drive 10% more than the limit and face no issues
I think I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve seen a US cop pull someone over while going over the speed limit. Most of the time they are sitting in their cars doing fuckall. Other than getting overpaid to scroll on their phones of course.
It still amazes me when I see a huge pedestrian-annihilation-class pickup truck fly past a cop doing 90 mph in a 60 mph zone and absolutely nothing happens. I think to myself, surely they are going to get pulled over. That’s felony speeding.
Nope. That would require the cop to get off their ass and do something. The only time that happens in this country is when there’s a constitutionally protected protest happening or when someone with dark skin is in the vicinity.
He is right. Do not cross the speed limit or make others cross it. Or if you are really in hurry just use right lane don’t be beemer guy
Drive rush hour here daily, you’ll notice we have a fair share of our own inconsiderate idiots here.
Oh and literal reckless murderers.
Go drive in an Asian country and come back. The difference is incredible
Yeah, in the US there’s zero chance that opening isn’t filled by drivers who think they’re more important than everyone else.
Well yeah… Because it doesn’t look like people are making room for an emergency vehicle lol
Without context I wouldn’t know what was going on here. US law tells you to pull over to the same side so my first thought wasn’t emergency vehicles. I couldn’t blame a US driver for not knowing German road law
This isn’t pulling over because there’s an emergency vehicle actively there. They’re pulling over because traffic is blocked up, for the possibility that an emergency vehicle may need through. It doesn’t decrease throughput bit it does let emergency vehicles through. If people abuse it then throughput stays the same and they lose the extra benefit.
Fair enough but my point still stands. People aren’t gonna figure out why it’s happening without being taught to do it themselves so yeah Americans would drive right through
Lol.
Sorry, it’s just… Have any of you seen LA freeway lane widths?
This doesn’t work everywhere. Love the idea, though!!
The system works for arbitrarily wide roads:
Over there they really do love to say ‘that’s brilliant but it’s absolutely impossible that would ever work over here in basically the same or easier situation bcs over here is not over there’.
The system works for arbitrarily wide roads
No, only up to 5 lanes, then you’re out of fingers.
This needs to be taught in the US and it needs to be enforced. If there’s two lanes on the road.(And I mean, two lanes going one way two lanes going the other way) Then, if it comes to a standstill everybody part so you have a center area that emergency services could drive in
Yeah you would need like 99.9% of the drivers in the US to agree to this. I don’t think you could even get 70% of the selfish fucks on our roads to do this. Guaranteed 3 out of 10 cars would wonder why everyone else is a bunch of losers and head straight down the middle, which would never actually exist in the first place because 7 out of 10 cars being considerate is nowhere near enough…
Half of them would be too busy drooling into their laps to even notice what was going on.
Do emergency vehicles have right of way in the US? Ive seen so many videos of people blocking fire trucks and ambulances. A guy i knew got a hefty fine here in Norway for driving behind an ambulance. We don’t do like the germans, but we immediately make way for all blue lights
Legally, yes, it’s even in the info they give at the DMV and I’ve even seen some people pull to the side (if for no other reason to copy those in front of them) but I know if we left an opening in the center in standstill traffic, some asshole would zoom down it almost immediately. And then probably several more, because again, they just copy each other.
I’ve had people follow me through traffic on the highway, doing what I do, and when they inevitably ride so close they can count the hairs on my head, I slow down to like 35; and they. Never. Get. The fucking. Hint.
I was driving in on an interstate one time, no other cars were around us, I was in the left lane going almost 80 and the person behind me was right up on my ass. So I go to the right lane and slow down to let them pass, and this motherfucker keeps right up on my ass, so I literally slow down to like 20, and they slow right on down with me for about 10 seconds until they finally realize what the fuck is going on.
People here in the US are all fucking goldfish I swear to God.
I can make it a good solid guess as to what happened there. They probably had adaptive cruise control running. For those who don’t know adaptive cruise control is it’s a sensor that will adjust your speed to perfectly match the speed of the person in front of you. If you are using cruise control. The problem is by default adaptive cruise control is set to the shortest distance possible. So it , from the person who is in front , from their perspective it looks like you are riding their ass. It should never be set to the shortest distance possible it should be set so you have about a three second following distance. Most people never adjust this because they’re stupid.
Now, why did they follow you when you change lanes? I’m going to call them a lemming. Well, the other person moved over so I’ll move over too. So as you slow down the adaptive cruise control makes them keep slowing down. And they’re not paying attention until like you said you get down about 30 miles an hour. Then they realize what’s going on.
Here’s the fun part when they pull out to go around you. If they speed up normally their engine doesn’t get gunned really hard. But if they just pull out, the adaptive cruise control kicks in and realize oh there’s nobody in front of me and I’m supposed to be going 80 mph. And the car will absolutely freaking gun it. It’ll go into overdrive. And if you aren’t prepared for that it’s quite the jolt.
And yeah they are basically goldfish and lemmings out there.
The particular case in my story didn’t have a super recent car that could have adaptive cruise control (also, ime ACC is never set at the closest but default, but either the second or farthest setting), so they were definitely just driving terribly.
Logical, reasonable people do. Entitled ass holes usually do not move.
Enforced is the big thing. I don’t know why police departments keep getting more money, thr money is right there on the highway waiting for them to get it. Every time drive I see people crossing the double white, abusing the big lane, speeding, swerving, even road raging. We have enough police in my city that there could be a cop in each directly every half mile of all of our interstates and they would make a huge profit. Just enforce the freaking laws we already have. Guaranteed they’ll make that budget shortfall.
And we haven’t even gotten into the whole “Drib up to ten over because no one cares”
Doing something for the good of people I don’t even know? Sounds dangerously close to socialism! /s
That’s the plan. In real life, only few ambulances manage “to fly through”, there are always some jerks ignoring this rule.
Probably still massively speeds up response times though. I imagine it wouldn’t be that hard to squeeze 2 cars in that given space allowing the emergency vehicle to get past the person not following the rules.
The photo example is extreme. It’s usually narrower.
Still though, Ive seen traffic in NYC keep an ambulance for two lights.
Well, it’s a high-speed 3-lane road that would fit 5 parked cars curb to curb so Rettungsgasse is where the space goes. Most other roads can barely yield 1 lane but emergency drivers are skilled and European fire trucks are not 1.5 lanes wide; still better to use a narrow free lane between 2 stationary ones rather than one of 2 crawling ones
Prisoners dilemma always wins.
- Prisoners dilemma doesn’t work when people are thinking of tomorrow. Once you take into consideration how your actions affect the decisions other people make in the future, it is always better to cooperate. That’s a big assumption from people, but if they don’t, they are not acting rationally in their own interest like in the dilemma.
- I’m pretty sure this comment is not complaining about people driving through the gap, it’s about people who are too absent minded to create a gap in the first place. In that case that’s not prisoners dilemma at all, they don’t get anything from not moving to the side.
Yeah but not in the way I think you mean: https://ncase.me/trust/
