Of course, the great poet Maxim Gorki didn’t mean a speed trap when he once wrote: “True love strikes like lightning in the heart, and it is dumb as lightning.” Even beyond romanticism, Gorki’s beautiful picture still catches the eye today, as anyone who has rushed through the wonderfully hilly Remshalden – at slightly excessive speed – knows.
There, the place is in Baden-Württemberg, there were still four stationary systems in the 1990s, which touched with their silent lightning, albeit in a different sense than Gorki intended. The Remshalden radar boxes not only flashed slowness, but also money in the local treasury. However, their presence in the 14,000-inhabitant community did not lead to true love, five years ago the penultimate one was dismantled on the outskirts of the village in the direction of Grunbach. Road workers had previously accidentally touched him, but certainly not with bad intentions.
That’s a pity for Remshalden, as the penultimate device brought the community 65,000 euros in income with only 4,500 euros in administration costs. Now all that remains is the stationary speed camera on Schorndorfer Straße, but which one, she knows Stuttgart newspaper to report, with its absolutely silly 27 fines and warnings per year, could not even begin to cover the administrative costs, which were five times higher.
In Munich, the speed camera density is low
Even if it is Bielefeld in North Rhine-Westphalia, which is currently the most important commercially most successful radar system operates in Germany (a single speed camera brings the city seven million euros a year), when it comes to fines, Baden-Württemberg doesn’t have to let anyone tell you anything: in no other federal state becomes more frequent flashed. As far as the number of fixed systems is concerned, according to a survey by a hard-working law firm, Cologne leads the largest German cities with 54 concrete speed cameras ahead of Wuppertal (45) and Bremen (43). Berlin, Hamburg and Munich will come later.
Anyone who not only likes to travel fast but is also technically adept has long had one of these apps on their cell phone – well hidden – which warn of almost every speed trap across Europe with a soft voice and for little money. Official is in Germany forbidden to use, but who notices when someone breathes through the loudspeaker during the police check? Could also be a voice message of true love. In any case, the software is advertised online as follows: “Always switch on the app while driving”. Sure, of course!
And so it honors Remshalden that it continues to care for its old public inventory so lovingly. Silent things like the newspaper box in particular liven up a cityscape immensely. And yet, in view of ever new technical possibilities (Picture: “Truck mafia from Eastern Europe: Toll fraud with a secret device – German driver unpacks”) more and more municipalities are getting real financing problems with their systems. And that is heartbreaking.