The open lane is a "Rettungsgasse" (rescue lane), explained here (auf English)."When traffic comes to a complete stop in Germany, the drivers, (by law) must move towards the... side to create an open lane for emergency vehicles."
The open lane is a "Rettungsgasse" (rescue lane), explained here (auf English)."When traffic comes to a complete stop in Germany, the drivers, (by law) must move towards the... side to create an open lane for emergency vehicles."
what's really amazing is that they all know that. If they passed that law in the US and made is a mandatory question on the driving test I doubt more than half of drivers would know to pull to the side
ReplyDeleteI think it has to do with the amount of driver training needed to obtain a license in Europe. My daughter has had half a dozen au pairs from France and Germany. All were 17-19 years old and excellent drivers.
ReplyDeleteAround 20-30 lessons (theory and driving), special safety driving course, etc, total cost around $2000 here (Sweden). For a normal car, about the same again if you want to drive a truck or a bus.
DeleteI had this work amazingly well a couple of weeks ago. Driving along on the Autobahn, traffic starts backing up, just as I'm passing an exit ramp. I see a police car approaching from the other direction, it hits the brakes and takes the exit ramp, crosses on the bridge that links the two exits, enters the 'Rettungsgasse' and reaches the site of the accident, all within maybe three minutes, traffic starts moving again shortly after.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, drivers' education has mandatory 'special' practical driving lessons, for night driving, for 'overland' and for autobahn.
Rettungsgasse-related laws were changed at the start of 2017, and with it came a big push to make the public aware. That includes many signs on bridges crossing the autobahn, for example.
I found this related page about Rettungsgasse (translated into English) -
Deletehttps://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rettungsgasse&prev=search
Here in Sweden it's kind of funny to see which drivers have experienced this in Germany (or been inspired to): It's not mandatory in the same way, but about half the drivers will do this. (And there's always the jerk that goes like, I'll pass everyone in the road you just opened, hopefully because they have no idea what's going on.)
ReplyDeleteIf you scroll down in the link I just added to the above comment and in the post, the penalties for driving in the rescue lane are discussed - up to 2,000 Euros monetary plus other administrative punishments.
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