A driver is driving at 30 km/h. A child runs into the street. The driver can just brake. Had he been driving 50, he would have run over the kid before he even hit the brakes. Because at 50 kilometers per hour, the reaction distance alone is longer than the stopping distance at 30 km/h.
Siegfried Brockmann likes to use this image to illustrate the possible consequences of frenzy. Brockmann is an accident researcher at the General Association of the German Insurance Industry. On Tuesday he explained in the press club how often the speed limit is exceeded on certain roads.
Brockmann’s conclusion: this still happens far too often, even if the drivers’ discipline has improved in the meantime. In 2016, the accident research of the insurers (UDV) measured the speeds on Munich’s streets. At that time, almost every fifth person drove too fast in Tempo 50 areas. Today it is only just under every eighth. If the city and the police monitored the speed more consistently, it would be even less, says Brockmann.
This summer, the UDV had an engineering office measure the speed of a total of around 307,000 cars on 36 Munich streets. To do this, they posted a measuring device at the side of the road for 24 hours a day on weekdays. In 16 streets where the speed limit is 50, the engineers measured a total of almost 28,984 exceedances above the tolerance limit of five kilometers per hour. 9177 were faster than 60, 921 faster than 70. 198 drivers drove faster than 80, 31 even faster than 100. A speeder set a sad record on Albert-Roßhaupter-Straße with a speed of 129 on a summer’s day 8:45 p.m. The two-lane arterial road between Harras and the Mittlerer Ring, which has two lanes in each direction, was the most frequently overrun area during the measurement period. Every fourth person was traveling too fast there.
In the three streets examined with a 30 km/h limit – Friedenspromenade, Offenbachstrasse, Zehntfeldstrasse – every third person drove too fast. 7,317 were faster than 35 kilometers per hour, 2,298 faster than 40. 422 vehicles tore the 50 mark within one day, 20 were even faster than 60. The record of Tempo 68 was measured on the Friedenspromenade in Trudering, in the afternoon at 4:45 p.m.
Hamburg shows what controls do
In 30 km/h zones, in which the speed limit applies across the board and not just on a specific street, the UDV had measurements taken at 14 points. Here every fourth was too fast. The peak value of 76 kilometers per hour was measured on Biedersteiner Straße at 2:45 p.m.
In three traffic-calmed areas on Kronwinkler Strasse, Rose-Pichler-Weg and Zauneidechsenweg, hardly anyone kept to the speed limit. Tempo 10 applies there, but eight out of ten people drove too fast, five even faster than 50, where exactly is not listed in the study. Not even at which times of the day and night people race most often. But one thing is certain: the less traffic there is at the moment, the more drivers will step on the gas pedal.
According to Brockmann, the fact that the number of speeders in Munich has fallen by an average of around 29 percent (excluding traffic-calmed zones) compared to 2016 is no reason for satisfaction. In 2017, the UDV also measured in Hamburg, which was still something of the speeding capital of the four German cities with a population of over a million. In the meantime, the Hanseatic city has begun to control speed more intensively, including with several mobile speed camera trailers whose location changes frequently. This control pressure has reduced the number of drivers who drive too fast by 35 percent. In Munich, the number of controls has not increased. According to Brockmann, the fact that something has improved here is partly due to the rise in petrol prices and the new catalog of fines, which stipulates significantly higher fines.
Lawn has become more expensive. For example, if you drive between eleven and 15 kilometers per hour too fast, you now pay 50 euros instead of the previous 25 euros. Brockmann estimates that this will not change for the time being. “Once the fines are increased, no politician will dare to do it for the next 15 years,” he says. But points in Flensburg’s traffic offenders file are still only available if you exceed 21 km/h in town, a driving ban from 31.
The then Federal Minister of Transport Andreas Scheuer (CSU) withdrew the rules for points and driving bans, which were initially tightened in the most recent amendment to the road traffic regulations, after protests. Brockmann thinks that was a mistake.