Driving In Berlin

Now the first thing that the research will tell you is to not rent a car when traveling in Europe, mostly cause the rail is so good but also because the cities and towns can be confusing, having to deal with traffic and such. However when I travelled there this wasn’t the case.

People travel to places to experience the culture, the food, the drink, language, all sorts of things. One thing that I like to experience is the roads. I love seeing the new and different cars when I travel to somewhere new. I love seeing how traffic moves and responds in different parts of the world. So when I went to Germany of course I wanted to drive on the mighty autobahns. So despite the research saying otherwise, we rented a little car.

It worked out wonderfully, we picked up the Car in Berlin, right beside a train station making it really easy with the bag. It was EuroCar that we used. The plan was to drive it to Munich, park it and in the two other days we had the car, drive to the Ludwig castles and then a trip to Legoland. We could have done this by train but we figured by car would be a lot more convinent and it was.

The driving: Now the thing about Germany is the discipline in all the little details of life. For example at any escalator, people stand to the right to leave a path for people in a hurry to walk by without inconvience. The police rarely check tickets on the city trains because for the most part everyone is very honourable and respects the system and buys tickets.
On the roads this discipline is also there. The traffic flows so well, and on the autobahn it all makes sense. Whether it is a two lane or a three lane, the slower cars are in the right and the faster ones in the left. As soon as a car passes it moves into the slower lane until it is time to pass again. If you are passing a car and the car you are passing moves over to the slow lane, you move to the middle. There is such great flow that you never really have to hit the brakes you never feel hindered. And if you need to pass someone you get to flash your lights and they respect it. And if someone does it to you, you get the fuck out of the way.

In the small towns with the roundabouts you never get the sensation either that you are stopping for very long. You are always sort of in motion. And the lights are the usually green yellow red, but they also go red yellow green, giving you a yellow before you go to let you know to start moving. I like that feature a lot.

The reason to drive on the autobahn though is for that moment when the speed limits disappear, and suddenly you see every car around you start to surge as every foot is reaching deep into the floor pushing the accelerator pedal to the stop. The thing is though, even with the speed on these roads, you don’t feel it. The autobahn is wide, smooth, and well banked. My estimate is that with the population of Germany, and for what the tax, they have a lot of money to maintain these roads. With the density and length of roads in Canada it is understandable that they aren’t as good.

The car I was driving was a 2011 VW Golf TDI. The same car that Nikki drives at home, only two generations newer. I found out on the autobahns that this car goes a max speed of 200km/h, 202 when going down hill. And even at that speed people will pass you. Overall we averaged speeds of 170 when we weren’t faced with construction that reduced speed. The car came equipped with an integrated GPS system. I highly recommend these. Makes it so much easier to navigate around towns as the roads can be confusing if you don’t know them, or even if you do.

Altogether it is a great idea to try the autobahns. Just to see how a roadway and traffic should be. It is a great drive and thrilling to reach those speeds legally and be able to maintain them. I recommend them.