Hardly any topic divides the Germans as much as the question of a speed limit. Good to observe recently, when the signs for 120 were unscrewed again on the Giesinger Autobahn out of town. What was that for a jubilation with some motorists! They acted as if they had had to push their cart to the Munich-South junction during the two years that the speed limit was in effect. The residents, on the other hand, are annoyed and are now closing their windows again and putting earplugs in.
So the bit of noise protection falls by the wayside again. But from Grünwald it has been known since this week at the latest that signs with speed limits are seen more as a recommendation anyway. As was heard in the municipal council, everyone drives 50 km/h in 30 km/h zones anyway, because the people of Grünwald cannot drive 30 km/h with their big cars. Applied to the Giesinger autobahn, this means that there are many cars that cannot drive 120 on the autobahn, let alone 80 at night.
You already suspected that in Taufkirchen and Unterhaching, where you always felt like you had an ear on the shoulder of the A 995 or the A 8. They can’t drive slow! This has now been proven by a speed measurement campaign by the motorway police, after speeders were allowed to believe for years: You can’t flash here at all, because where should the devices be set up? But now they have found a place next to the lane towards the city center and in four days they have had 225 driver’s licenses for speeding. The record was 212 kilometers per hour.
If you were to deal with the speedster like the fourth graders in Augsburg recently, his rush of speed could be quite a nuisance. The children let speed drivers bite into a lemon in front of their school as punishment. It is questionable whether this will turn notorious racers into refined cruisers. Fast is sexy, as people from Oberhaching and Straßlach find out again and again when racing cyclists speed through the villages and throw themselves down the Mühlberg. They can’t drive slow at all.
Speed is no longer en vogue. Just think of the many mindfulness seminars, the followers of slow food and slow dating. Yes, in the meantime the good old pressure cooker has been replaced by the “slow cooker”. In the Netherlands, the so-called chat registers are popular in supermarkets, where the goods are not swiped over the scanner at top speed. And if you want to do something good for yourself and your teeth, you go to the “slow dentist”, who drills slowly. So it’s high time for “slow driving”. Then you will at least be seen in your fancy sled.