unbent@ecsvax.UUCP (01/26/84)
<> In Germany, drivers are about as car-crazy as you can get--and they insist on their autonomy every bit as much as we Americans. NO speed limits on the Autobahns! (As 7-UP would put it: Never had 'em; never will.) BUT... 1. Seatbelt use is mandatory. How's it enforced? Mostly by raising the stakes. If you're involved in an accident and *not* wearing a seatbelt, the insurance company won't pay. Period. You'll also be cited by the police. 2. Children riding only in the back seat is mandatory. 3. The police set up periodic random roadblocks to screen for drunken drivers. Catch a bunch of 'em, too-- *before* they've driven very far from their neighborhood bar. 4. Most importantly, a *truly rigorous* biennial inspection of the car is mandatory. There's a national organization called TUV (Technische Untersuchungs Verein) which gives the car a *total* going over. If TUV doesn't OK it, it's pulled off the road *then and there*. That's why you don't see *any* rusted hulks driving about on German highways. 5. Finally, the minimum driving age for automobiles (and motorcycles over 80 cc displacement) is *eighteen*. And boy, do you need to know your stuff before you get one! Getting a driving license in Germany is roughly analogous to getting a pilot's license over here--many hours of "ground school" until you can pass a comprehensive written examination (it comes in about a dozen 20-page booklets), and many hours of driving practice with a "licensed flight instructor" before you're allowed to *take* the driving test. (It costs a minimum of about $500 to get to the driving test in Germany.) The upshot is that driving in Germany is a pleasure. You zoom along confidently at 85 mph plus, knowing that your car is structurally safe and sound, that everyone else on the road has been well-trained, and, consequently, that everyone else on the road is *predictable*. You can count on drivers to signal turns, to actually turn in the direction signalled, to pull over and let faster vehicles past, to turn from the correct lane into the correct lane (without slopping over into other lanes), etc. If all that stuff came with them, I wouldn't object to similar mandatory seatbelt, inspection, and what-have-you laws over here. And then we, too, could junk the old double-nickel! --Jay Rosenberg (ecsvax!unbent)