Oh man, you guys need to do what *I* just did for a couple of weeks this June and July.
Ran up and down the Autobahn.
130-160 mph EVERY DAY!
Safely, legally, comfortably, serenely. As comfortable as taking a bath.
LEFT lane for PASSING only. And believe me, I passed up everything in sight. Everything.
In 2 weeks only got passed ONCE (it was somewhere between Stuttgart and Munich). Saw those BMW angel eyes closing REAL fast. So I signaled and moved over immediately.
It was some kind of new BMW, in the split second I saw it, looked like a new M5. It looked like the whole car was dipped in black paint, even the windows - limo tint on it probably.
Within seconds it was miles ahead of me, and i was doing abour 130 mph, if I had to guess he was doing over 180 mph - way over 260 kph.
Sure put America and its drivers to shame. Shallow, bad roads, and drivers that change lanes without looking or signaling, untrained, oblivious idiots yakking, talking and texting on cell phones, lots of them drunk, left-lane bandits that will go real slow and refuse to pull over, road ragers, what a nation of morons in their cars, all you need is money and you can buy a car and get a license to drive, no matter if the last thing you were herding down the road was a water buffalo in Vietnam.
DUI limit in Germany is .05 - they mean BUSINESS too, over there. Omne of the worst sins is PASSING on the right - unpredicvtable chaos can occur if you do that. You can get STIFF fines and lose your license if you try that. Tourists can run away so their fines are DOUBLE and you "PAY RIGHT NOW, pliss." Can even be 4,000 euros for tourists.
The Autobahn Polizei chase you differently. They pull in FRONT of you. Then, blue lights on the roof flash at you and the sign you see says: " HALT BITTE " (STOP PLEASE")
They used to run these:
Can't wait to go back. Drove through "D" - Germany, "F" - France, "CH" -Switzerland, "A" - Austria, "I" -Italy and "FL" - Lichtenstein.
Almost 4,000 kms in TWO weeks.
No tour bus could EVER go that fast and cover that much groumd and see as much as I got to see, in that amount of time.
Going back this next year. Budapest, Vienna, Prague, Bratislava and Warsaw and Berlin are on the agenda, I think. And more..
Europa has its act together.
I know. I got to be part of it.
I had this Audi A6 turbo diesel. That thing REALLY got the job done.
Seen at the hotel De l'Abbaye d'Alspach in Kientzheim, France
(Alsace wine country)
Serious Autobahn runners almost exclusively favor the medium and big BMW, Mercedes Benz and Audi. This was no surprise to me. I had to fight tooth and nail to rent one. The idiot American travel agent tried to rent me some silly Fiat 500, Ford Fiesta or like tin can.
Nein danke.
America doesn't get it..