Car Scene - Germany vs. Australia

[V3RSAC3]

Hey all,

Sorry if this is a repost. I found this article and thought that it was a good read.

http://www.caradvice.com.au/30280/ge...n-car-culture/

German vs. Australian car culture.

I’m moving to Germany. There is no questioning it now. I can’t work out how I am going to survive in Australia when I come back, so the best option is to stay here. Let me tell you why.

I just came back from the Nurburgring, the home of modern motorsports. The track is a sight that has to be seen. M3, M3, M5, M3, Porsche GT3, GT2, GT3 RS, M3, M3 CSL, Nissan GT-R, M3, M3, McLaren SLR, F430 Scuderia, EVO IX, EVO X, STI, Lotus Exige, and all on a normal Sunday morning.

You pay about AUS$50 and you can do as many laps as your car can take. Depending on how good you are, each lap can take around 10 minutes, anything under that is a reasonable time.

We also met Sabine Schmidt (the Nurburgring girl – you may remember her from TopGear with the van) who was taking tourists around in the Ring-Taxis (M5). She would get it sideways around a few corners and then scream past.

The ‘ring alone is reason enough to move to Germany, but that’s just the icing on the cake. The main reason to move here is the car culture.

“Oh you’re in an M5, I’m in a Volvo. Sorry sir, let me move over and let you pass” – “Oh, you indicated left because I am going slow in the fast lane, sorry, let me move over instantly and not give you the finger as you go past”.

We even met a few car lovers, one of them invited us back to his house, where he had a collection of old but very quick BMWs.

Unlike Australia, the faster your car is in Germany, the more respect you get on the road.

Everyone from little children to grandmothers love cars. In fact while we were at ABT, we saw an old Audi S2 tuned to over 450bhp, owned by a 74-year-old grandmother, no joke. If someone can find me a 74-year-old Australian grandmother with a 450bhp+ car, I might reconsider my decision.

We drove 503km from ABT, at Kempten, to Brabham Racing, 20km away from the Nurburgring, in about three hours, and didn’t run out of fuel this time.

Anthony was competing with a Porsche Panamera whilst George and I were listening to Sunshine 106.1 (Armin Van Buuren was playing – music would be another reason to move here) and maintaining an average speed of 180km/h, in our Focus stationwagon.

I am trying to imagine the look on an Australian police officer’s face if they pulled me over for doing 180km/h in a Focus. I’d be on front page of the newspaper the next day “Idiot Hoon does 80km/h more than the speed limit”.

What about in the ABT R8? 320km/h? Can you imagine the headline? I’d be a national celebrity overnight. “Madman goes 320km/h, sentenced to five years in jail”.

Anthony came up with a good analogy, it feels like we’ve been let out of jail for a month.

Whilst I was driving the ABT tuned AS5R at a cruisy 200km/h I saw a cop in the right lane (slow lane). My instant reaction was “Oh god, ticket!”. I hit the brakes, pulled in behind him and followed at about 130km/h.

Thirty seconds later an M3 went past us at about 190km/h. The cop didn’t even look. 20 more seconds went by and and an M6 came screaming past at around 250km/h. Cop stayed still. Then I realised, oh, yes, I forgot, this is legal.

Can you believe going 250km/h past a police car on a public road can be legal? Can you imagine what an Australian police highway patrol car would do to you if you did this on an Australian highway?

It almost makes you depressed thinking about the difference in car culture. The last time I got pulled over for speeding (18km/h over) in Brisbane, the kind Cop gave me a grilling as if I was responsible for every death on the road.

Can we please bring every single person that has anything to do with setting up speed limits and transport guidelines to Germany? Just for one week?

At this point some of you are thinking, sure it may work in Germany but the autobahns are far better highways than what we have in Australia. Not entirely true.

The M1 Pacific Highway, from Brisbane to Gold Coast, for example, is actually larger than any autobahn I’ve encountered to date. Our lanes are wider and our main roads are just as smooth. So why can’t we go past 110km/h?

Is it the cars? Perhaps, but there are just as many old cars here as there are in Australia, guess what? They stay in the slow lanes, they go 110km/h, the fast cars go 250km/h+ past them, no one complains. The slow go slow, the fast go fast, everyone is happy. Why is this so hard to comprehend?

We were filming the Brabham BT92 today at the Nurburgring and just witnessing the difference in attitude to speed and cars was amazing.

At one moment whilst we were filming the ‘ring, a few German’s started playing AC/DC (Thunderstruck) and it reminded us of Bathurst, but a Ferrari F430 followed by a Porsche GT3 RS and an EVO X went past quickly, oh yes, not Bathurst.

As if the cars aren’t enough, I witnessed with my own eyes, gorgeous beautiful women standing around admiring the cars. I don’t need to die to go to heaven, I found it at the Nurburgring.

No one is doing the ‘pinky’ in Germany. The people here love cars because they love cars, no one does random burnouts in the street, when the autobahn does have a speed limit (road works for example), EVERYONE obeys.

What’s so different in our two cultures that all of this seems so strange? Why is going 320km/h a jail worthy crime in Australia and perfectly legal in Germany?

Why do people get so frightened when we go 20km/h over the speed limit in Australia?

“Slow down stupid”?. No, I don’t think so. “Learn to drive, Stupid”.

[Lotte]

Honestly I think it has a lot to do with driver training.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't driver training in a lot of western Europe quite intense? from memory it is in Finland.
Example, I was stuck on the Monash just then behind someone who couldn't decide between 80 and 100. If a large portion of the population can't stick to a speed, how will they cope with autobahn style roads D:

[Revolver]

Originally Posted by lotski

Honestly I think it has a lot to do with driver training.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't driver training in a lot of western Europe quite intense? from memory it is in Finland.

Yes it is. They start at around 13 driving a car, skid pan, & advanced driving courses are compulsory & are required before you are able to aquire the licence. Grass roots racing is big over there too. Driver Education is in the system, & not just optional. Thats how it should be here. Would stop alot of the young blokes driving like idiots, & the young girls not having a clue over driving dynamics or how to park.

[AWD Chaser]

The main point you miss is that this is on the Autobahn.

Go and watch the Megabuilds doco on how they built the Autobahn.

A simple light bend in the road starts kilometers back, and the road elevation starts 10s of k's back to gentely increase the climb - not to mention engineered camber, etc. Its basically a racetrack.

Now have a look at Oz highways - potholes that swallow truck wheels, blowen tyres littered everywhere, random sharp cornering, trees on the edge of the bitchumen. Lets not even mention how a car fares a kangaroo at 250kph. I'm glad that our highways (given their state or repair and design) are limited to 100/110.

[satria]

Originally Posted by Revolver 45

Yes it is. They start at around 13 driving a car, skid pan, & advanced driving courses are compulsory & are required before you are able to aquire the licence. Grass roots racing is big over there too. Driver Education is in the system, & not just optional. Thats how it should be here. Would stop alot of the young blokes driving like idiots, & the young girls not having a clue over driving dynamics or how to park.

I watched a lady last night whilst waiting for my mrs at the shops try to park her car and she wriggled her car back and forth after initially mounting the curb about 6 or 7 times and still had both tyres outside of the lines. It was just frustrating to watch, i felt like either A) doing it for her or B) telling her that if she just took 5 minutes to learn to reverse park she would have done a much better job and already had her shopping done by that point haha

[SB076]

Just got back from Germany and drove on the Autobahns, interesting you cant drive flat out all the time (mainly due to what the Germans called physical speed limits - cars in front and traffic) However during odd hours in the night you can definitely do some quick speeds (I only drove during the day, but the people I was speaking to drove earlier morning)

I did get to drive around the Nurburg ring which was a lot of fun.

Very different drivers over there, they all move over as soon as they pass, I didnt see any road rage or anything and really enjoyed driving over there.

The roads I drove on had areas where the speed limit was unrestricted and areas where there were restrictions (ie 130 K) Usually due to major intersections, or other issues. I drove mainly around Hannover. Two lane Autobahn concrete barrier at the side of the road, no emergency lane and no speed limit

[WPR1]

No reason why we couldn't raise our limit to 130 (I believe they did this in Italy and it lowered the road toll). Our cars could handle it easy but any more than 130 and I think we are getting close to maxing our drivers ability.

[pottery beige]

there is way too much money too be made out of turning normally law abiding citizens into criminal car driving cash registers..

[Revolver]

Originally Posted by WPR1

No reason why we couldn't raise our limit to 130 (I believe they did this in Italy and it lowered the road toll).

You Heretic! False information! Lies I tell you! Lies!

[jmack]

they teach them how to drive not how to get their license,2 totaly different things!

[GT-spec15]

It's an awesome place but for a number of reasons, you couldn't simply apply their road rules in Oz.

Crap roads, laughable licensing process.....it all points to FAIL here.

[Agile]

Your dreaming OP. And your from Adelaide, you already know the answer. As PB said, its ALL ABOUT REVENUE . Nothing to do with anything else. With the amount of complete morons on the roads in Adelaide I shudder to think of unlimited speed on country roads and main city freeways. Fulham Funerals and the like couldn't keep up with the work load

[GTP-RPD]

Is this copyright? because I am now using this...

“Slow down stupid”?. No, I don’t think so. “Learn to drive, Stupid”.

[SB076]

Oh another interesting thing Trucks are limited to 80k's over there, closure rate when travelling at 200+ k's is very fast.

Speaking to a German who was sitting beside me, he said you could see my concentration increase as the speed increased - I wasnt looking around I was looking a long way up the road and occasional glimpse in the rear view for anyone travelling faster than me

[EDManual]

yep, fast closing speeds dont seem to be a problem over there! So is not an excuse not to put up our speeds to 130 or so from 100 on the Hume or whatever....

Also only people with the skills drive, if you dont have the skills or they have dropped off a bit over the years you DO not drive! The only really oldies you see on the autobahns are tourists from elsewhere in Germany I have noticed!

[GQ_Smooth]

Will unfortunately never happen here.
We have chosen to go down the policing path (catering for the lowest common denominator) and not self regulating education path.

I cannot see this changing in our lifetime.

[malazn mafia]

If the Australian government loves us so much that they are hell bent on saving everyone's lives, why don't they just outlaw motor vehicles altogether and go back to horses and carts for everybody. Would tie in very nicely with their intentions.

[jpblue1000]

Originally Posted by malazn mafia

If the Australian government loves us so much that they are hell bent on saving everyone's lives, why don't they just outlaw motor vehicles altogether and go back to horses and carts for everybody. Would tie in very nicely with their intentions.

Nah horses kick people in the heads and if we all had them there would be a lot of head kicking , plus we would all have one horsepower so how could we prove our manliness other than kicking our neighbours in the head which would lead to a new fine-able offense of neighbour head kicking.
Then someone would juice up their horse and have 1.25 Hp and all of a sudden they'd have tacky body kits which all the boy riders would want and it would get out of hand then the Japanese would build a better horse with whatever a better horse has then there would be imports of better horses costing Australian horse breeders jobs and arguments about what breed of horse is better...Think about the horses people. Say no to horse and cart 2013...

JP

[EBII Fairmont]

It's all revenue raising as PB said. I am convinced the Government doesn't really care about fatalities on roads. An example is the hume highway returning to Melbourne. The entire way down, everyone keeps a safe distance away from one another and overtakes when needed. Once you hit the point to point cameras, everyone bunches up in both left and right lane and its just chaotic. It's an accident waiting to happen. If they cared, they would focus on driving training, rather than just handing out licenses.

Also I heard in Victoria, don't know about the rest of Australia, 40km zones were started for us to get used to doing a lower speed, so they can eventually drop the speed of most roads.

[Keepleft]

Can we please bring every single person that has anything to do with setting up speed limits and transport guidelines to Germany? Just for one week?

Well, our former coalition federal roads minister, The Hon. Jim Loyd went out on the autobahn; he commented at the kick-off to the national driver training program (Keys2Drive), December 15, 2004 - that he deepy admired German lane disciple, that he wanted Australian people to learn the same skills and attitude, but lamented that'd it'd take generations to achieve. Then Deputy PM Anderson wanted extensive driver skills training.

NSW is the only state here, that correctly teaches pupils how to use three-lane motorway.

At this point some of you are thinking, sure it may work in Germany but the autobahns are far better highways than what we have in Australia. Not entirely true.

They are, for some lengths built to a very high-standard owing the requirement to de-ice, their ascents are no greater than 6% grading, we'll goto 8% here in AUS. Some delinneation issues etc.

The M1 Pacific Highway, from Brisbane to Gold Coast, for example, is actually larger than any autobahn I’ve encountered to date. Our lanes are wider and our main roads are just as smooth. So why can’t we go past 110km/h?

Our traffic lane widths are exactly the same @ 3.5 metres each. Sometimes, a slow-lane might go out to 3.75m in both places, but the general rule is 3.5m.

German and EU medians are the usual 4.0m wide, and are always divided by crash barrier. EU doesn't have U-Turn bays on medians, we do - but at least NSW etc are trying to deter the stupid from using them, by installation of gatelock and wire-rope taper-off treatments. Our medians are usually 10-13m (we base our Specs on the US Interstate), and don't have enough continuous median barrier, yet.

Some of our rural highways are constructed to both "dual carriageway" and other lengths to "full motorway" spec. The less-safe dual carriageway lengths usually have damned 'intersections', motorway lengths - 'interchanges', so far safer design for the motorway spec.

Each of these two specs have those damned U-turn bays mentioned above. Makes it a tad harder to gofor 130km/h in justification, but at least works are underway, have been a number of years to remedy some of the dumb imported engineering mistakes.

NSW will see 120km/h, and if were are fair dinkum 130km/h.

“Slow down stupid”?. No, I don’t think so. “Learn to drive, Stupid”.

I like this....

[CheftonUTD]

I think it comes down to driver training, road quality and vehicle quality.

When I got my P's I had done 3 driving lessons and about 10hrs supervised driving, that seems a pretty low requirement...
Roads up here (Cairns region, Northern Beaches and Tablelands) are mostly decent, but every now and then they'll throw in a roundabout, or cane-train crossing on the highway, or just a section of very slick low traction bitumen.
There are quite a few areas of highway where I would feel comfortable and safe doing about 140km/h in the Falcon, but doing that or even sharing the road with some of the crap-bucket vehicles I see getting around almost makes me in favour of the 80-100km/h limits on those roads...
Personally I think higher speed limits would be a good thing, but it'd take a lot of driver education / vehicle standards to make it feasible I believe.

[EDManual]

Its not right what you say above.

Thing is, even if you are from elsewhere and drive in Germany, you instantly do what they do, drive to your ability and will drive to your cars standards.

If you have an old car, you keep maintenance up to it.

If we had high speed limits here, 99% of drivers would not risk dodgy tyres, driving erratically etc etc. Its a natural thing, you dont need laws or training or vehicle quality standards or even road quality for that.

[Ben73]

Originally Posted by EDManual

Its not right what you say above.

Thing is, even if you are from elsewhere and drive in Germany, you instantly do what they do, drive to your ability and will drive to your cars standards.

If you have an old car, you keep maintenance up to it.

If we had high speed limits here, 99% of drivers would not risk dodgy tyres, driving erratically etc etc. Its a natural thing, you dont need laws or training or vehicle quality standards or even road quality for that.

99%?
Don't know about that. The "she'll be right, mate" attitude that many people have here will come into play.
I'd say majority of people would still buy the same tyres even if the limits were increased.

I'm all for limit increases, but I there would need to be more strict regulations for other things. Roadworthy cars is one of those things.


The high speed limits is not the only good thing about Germany. Their whole attitude towards performance and expensive cars seams awesome. Here it's not uncommon to get hatred and abuse for driving something that is out of the ordinary.
I have had that a few times in my 300c. I can only imagine what you would get in a Ferrari or similar.

[Yellow_Festiva]

Originally Posted by Ben73

99%?
Don't know about that. The "she'll be right, mate" attitude that many people have here will come into play.
I'd say majority of people would still buy the same tyres even if the limits were increased.

I'm all for limit increases, but I there would need to be more strict regulations for other things. Roadworthy cars is one of those things.


The high speed limits is not the only good thing about Germany. Their whole attitude towards performance and expensive cars seams awesome. Here it's not uncommon to get hatred and abuse for driving something that is out of the ordinary.
I have had that a few times in my 300c. I can only imagine what you would get in a Ferrari or similar.

Yep... is there a German equivalent for "She'll be right mate?" Doubt it. And if there ever was, doubt it would still be around today.

Last time I was in Germany, I remember my friend telling me how expensive their license was.. the figure floored me.. like 1300 Euros. No, not a mistake.

The German 'way of thinking' is based on the adherence of rules / procedures and efficiency. Anything less and it's a personal failure on their part.

We just don't have that same rational here. Driving on the freeways here makes that obvious in the first hour in most cases... me, me ME!..

Our main freeways can certainly handle speeds of 130km/h. The problem is, will we all be happy to pay a 5-10% increase in out income tax to let it happen?? Not a chance.

Missed going to the ring when I was in Germany... will be back soon enough to catch up with some old mates and have a blast for sure ;)

[FNQracing]

Seriously, the author must be 16. The guy is wetting his pants over there in Deutschland. Good for him, I remember my first trip there too. Its great fun.

Its different. Can you imagine the result of every dimwitted bogan tearing up the Hume in their home modified pussbox @ top speed? They'd wipe themselves out only after taking out everything in their path on the way.

No thanks.

[new2ford]

Originally Posted by pottery beige

there is way too much money too be made out of turning normally law abiding citizens into criminal car driving cash registers..

That's the most pertinent post on the whole thread.

And it's not just Germany in Europe, the same applies generally across Europe, with minor variations.

It's just simply awful coming back here and driving again. It makes you lose interest, but there's no alternative. Our local train service averages 50 km/h, taking 3 hours to Sydney. In Germany, if you're doing 200 km/h along the motorway you'll be overhauled by a train doing 300 on the adjacent railway! (Munich-Nuremberg is a good one for seeing that.)

Our restrictions are downright dangerous for the distances we have here. I was doing the 200 km Plzen-Nuremberg in about 1 hour 45 mins. The 150 km Nowra to Sydney takes a bit over 2 hours and for a lot of that time you're fighting off the urge to fall asleep toddling slowly along motorways built pretty much to German autobahn standards.

The only thing that keeps you awake is watching the GPS/speedo to stay up to 100 as much as possible to try to shorten the journey time and constantly watching for the coppers.

Like one poster above, I've also had the pavlovian Australian impulse of coming across a police car on a Czech or German motorway and instinctively hitting the brakes - until you remember that the police there aren't interested unless you're doing something stupidly dangerous. Here I feel like I've come back to some proto-fascist society with paramilitary patrols on the roads.

I'd like a German consultancy to be brought out here to review all our roads and make some recommendations based on their speed limit standards (with any corrective work recommendations to attain the standard, where necessary). Would be interesting to see the results.

[Elks]

This is a massively complex arguement.

The Germany roads and licencing system is far superior to ours as is there adherence to the courteous use of the roads. This results in them having a lower per capita road toll than ours, at 4.5 vs our 5.7 deaths per 100,000 of population.

It doesn't hurt that they are driving on good roads, in relatively good cars. Benz BMW & Audi are the norm. And whilst the FG is a massively safe car, the same cant be said about an EL.

I personally think our clampdown on speed, speeding and hooning is way to harsh. And our govt has gone down the wrong path here but if we could reduce our road toll to the rate of germany's we would save 200 ish lives per annum. that would be good.

[Maka]

Originally Posted by malazn mafia

If the Australian government loves us so much that they are hell bent on saving everyone's lives, why don't they just outlaw motor vehicles altogether and get Google Self Drive Cars for everybody. Would tie in very nicely with their intentions.

Fixed lol!

Seriously, we have a great country with some great roads comparable with Germany, its about time we have this debate!


cheers, Maka

[new2ford]

Originally Posted by Maka

Google Self Drive cars

Really, Google Earth etc eliminates the need to go out the door and see the world outside at all. Now if they can work out virtual food....

Anything to stop that one-way revenue stream.

Two things from Europe can be addressed in Australia pretty quickly.

One is not penalising the temporary burst of acceleration (over the speed limit) to clear an obstacle or overtake. Is there any other country in the world that regulates to encourage head-on collisions? Probably not. Why else would we want to put cameras/police on clear overtaking stretches or passing lanes other than to maximise time on the wrong side of the road and increase driver frustration? I guess it's so they can use the higher death rate to argue a point (and rake in the revenue).

The other is having differential speed limits between cars and heavy vehicles. In Europe it's generally 130 vs 90 (although it doesn't necessarily have to be that wide a margin). Plenty of opportunity to get out of each other's way quickly and not bug the driver of the overtaken vehicle by sitting on tail/alongside/right in front for fear of exceeding the same speed limit (not to mention being on the wrong side of the road again).

[Lotte]

Originally Posted by Revolver 45

Yes it is. They start at around 13 driving a car, skid pan, & advanced driving courses are compulsory & are required before you are able to aquire the licence. Grass roots racing is big over there too. Driver Education is in the system, & not just optional. Thats how it should be here. Would stop alot of the young blokes driving like idiots, & the young girls not having a clue over driving dynamics or how to park.

The last bit made me chuckle. I'd love to see something like this over here. Couple with basic car maintenance.

Originally Posted by EBII Fairmont

Also I heard in Victoria, don't know about the rest of Australia, 40km zones were started for us to get used to doing a lower speed, so they can eventually drop the speed of most roads.

Didn't they do that in SA. If they did that here, I'd ride aforementioned horse and allow it to kick them. In the head.