Thursday, December 12, 2013

Pops’ Autobahn Travel Guide




Every guy and girl should experience driving on the Autobahn. The Autobahn is the highway system in Germany. Every country in the world, including the US, should use the Autobahn as an example of what they would want their highways to look like. The surfaces are smooth, not with potholes like you see in the US. The speed indicators are mostly electronic. What that means is if there is an accident or road construction ahead the speed limits can be changed. I said limits because on certain stretches of the Autobahn different lanes can have different speed limits. On some stretches you will see a speed of 120 with a line through it. That means there is no speed limit. On-ramps are very long giving cars plenty of time to merge into traffic. There are unwritten rules to driving on the Autobahn. Slower cars need to stay to the right and flashing headlights from behind mean you better move over.





Having relatives in both Italy and Denmark I have driven the Autobahn many times going back and forth. It is the most fun I have ever had driving. On one trip with my son we were in a construction zone and everyone was driving slower when a Lamborghini passed us still going fairly slow. Later we saw the same Lamborghini in a petrol station and I told my son we would probably see it again. Miles down the road we were in a no speed limit zone and I had my BMW going as fast as it could go. Luckily I was not in the far left lane. I never saw it coming from behind but before we knew it the Lamborghini flew by us like we were standing still and sounding like an F1 car. It was soon out of sight. Later my son asked me where I thought the Lamborghini was and I told him it was probably in Italy by then. Sometimes I was leading the way, other times I was following another car and still other times I couldn’t keep up. Either way it was a blast.

The US should be ashamed of the state of our highways.

A word of caution, maybe you shouldn’t take your spouse with you. Having someone telling you to slow down could ruin the experience.

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