Sunday, January 13, 2013

Driving in Germany: happy smiley face and sad smiley

What do they call road rage here? We have heard "aggressive driving", "pushy" and things like that but nothing as catchy as 'road rage'.

They have it, though.

The freeway is the place to be to see aggression on two, four, or eighteen wheels. Or any number in-between when someone looses a wheel or two.

There are the generic forms of honking, clipping, tailgating, and there is the flashing of headlights, a German art form. The sequence of flashing can range from a non-nonsense alert flash to the opening sequence of The Ride of the Walkyries.

There is little in everyday adrenaline release that compares to the feeling you get in a good flashing headlights situation.

Imagine, you are rolling along at 75 miles in a 75 miles/hour zone, passing a truck, and then he is right there. Your last glance into the rear view mirror showed an empty left lane.
Now there two pulsating headlights that look like an alien spaceship is about to touch down on your trunk.

People get frightened, loose control over their vehicle, and get killed every year by headlights jerks.
The lobby uses a well-worn argument so familiar to our US audience: Flashing headlights don't kill people!

If you have driven in the United States, you have seen the speed indicator panels by the side of the road that tell you the current speed limit and then "Your speed".

Unsurprisingly, Germany has speed indicator panels, too,

With a very nice twist: I you are under the speed limit, you will see the number and then a Happy Smiley Face. If you are above the speed limit, you see the speed and a Sad Face.

We have not been able to find answers to a couple of questions regarding the panels:
1) Do they store counts of the number of vehicles under and above the speed limit?
Traffic planers - or the cops in Germany - could get an idea of how prevalent speeding is on the stretch of covered road.
2) If they store figures, do they capture the time of day, too?
On some roads, speeding is exceedingly common at certain times during the day or the night and negligible the rest of the time.

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