Duel II

On a day when the first news article I read is of a 256-car pile-up on the German Autobahn and one where I've been severely deprived of sleep, I feel compelled to write again, namely on the subject of the catastrophic nature of German driving.

I should start by saying I myself am by no means a good driver; I passed my test on my third attempt after first having tried to fit a Suzuki Swift sideways into a parking space and then, a month later, having felt the need to make the jump to lightspeed in a 40mph zone. However, on moving to Germany I successfully made the transition from left-hand to right-hand drive after a few months of ploughing up verges on the road from Munich to Dachau. I felt that I should be able to survive in a country notorious for its petrol heads by driving with my usual brand of courtesy and complete fear of other drivers. Yet time after time, I'm left white-knuckled, gripping the steering wheel in disbelief at the antics of the drivers around me. Even on my first visit as a passenger in 2001, my brother, renowned for his excessive speed (his regular boast was to have once managed 107mph in a 30 zone when late for work), was staggered at the fact that although he would be exceeding 120mph on the speed limit-free Autobahn, he still somehow had a Mercedes attached, limpet-like, to the rear of his car, flashing its lights in impatience for him to get out the way.

Why though? It's hard to believe that on a Saturday afternoon in middle of nowhere anything is that urgent that drivers need to drive at a speed which popular film fiction has informed me would leave a pair of fire trails behind them. It's not like in Italy where they simply don't acknowledge that there are other cars on the road, or France where cars are seen as weapons. It seems that driving is the ultimate expression of the inconsiderateness and of the passive-aggressiveness that you learn to love in this country. You can be arrested in Germany for giving someone the finger if they cut you up (something I came all too close to experiencing a couple of months back - never mind the fact that this gesture is imported and traditionally has no meaning here), however you can drive close enough to see every speck of dirt on my rarely-washed car for miles on end and no-one bats an eyelid. There are actually hefty fines for not leaving sufficient braking distance (Abstand), however I've only heard of one instance of this being enforced, and obviously it's not having much effect out there...

Das Überauto also seems to serve as the ultimate status symbol, particularly in this part of Bavaria, which simply exudes wealth - the ludicrousness of thousands of people driving €90,000 5 Series BMWs yet still living in rented accommodation and shopping at Lidl simply can't be ignored. Whereas the more enterprising of my fellow graduates saved a portion of their wages in order to put a deposit down on their first house, the average "young professional" in Germany seems to channel their funds into acquiring their first big saloon car, inevitably one of the German "Big Three" - BMW, Mercedes or Audi. I recently experienced first-hand a colleague speak of his pride at finally being able to cast off the shackles of his mid-sized Japanese hatchback for an Audi A4. I can only assume the logic is that while only your neighbours can see your house, with a mobile object everybody can wonder at how high you've risen in the social stratification if they see you driving it around, particularly if you add some mention to when you completed your Abitur so that people know how little time it's taken you to get there. The sheer number of convertibles on the road (roof down, windows up) would also indicate a degree of vanity at play here.

I experience a particularly bewildering example of driving, German-style, on my daily route to work. Two strains of the Mittlerer Ring, the inner ring road, converge by the Olympiapark, where the 1972 Olympics were held, and run alongside each other as four lanes for about a kilometre, before one road leads back into town, and another takes you towards the A9 Autobahn and the east of the city. Those coming from south of Munich have to join by far the more 'popular' of the two roads to carry on their merry way around the ring road. Needless to say this leads to queues as by nature Germans are not pre-disposed to allowing other cars to come between them and the rear bumper of the vehicle in front of them. At this point, realising that their journey might be delayed by 10 minutes, the BMW/Audi/Mercedes drivers pull out into the emptier of the two roads, zoom down this 1km stretch of road, before attempting to force their way back into the lane they've just vacated. Provide they can force the first 2 feet of their bonnet into a gap between between two cars, that spot is declared theirs, and they will wait, straddling two lanes sideways in that position until the idiot who attempted the same two cars in front of them has been allowed in. They then squeeze their way in and drive on (naturally without thanks to the driver behind whose car has just avoided a near-miss) as if this is completely acceptable. Add to this that the German police use this stretch to pull over 'anyone that looks a bit dodgy' and you have a recipe for insanity.

I should stress that I am generalising here. Not everyone in this country aspires to be an arsehole in an overpowered saloon car, and in comparison Germans are far less reliant on their cars than the English - presumably because their public transport is something approaching reliable as opposed to the shambles in the UK (though if their train drivers drive like their car drivers, God help us all). You could also highlight my own hypocrisy in still driving to work when I could just as easily use said public transport, particularly considering how horrified I am at the examples of driving I see on a daily basis. Still, it is undoubtedly the case that the worst aspects of German behaviour and society are seen in a nutshell on their roads.