PUCKER wrote:I had the pleasure to rent a nice Mercedes for a week's tour of Germany several years ago. Once you've driven the Autobahn at speed for several hours you really come to appreciate what courteous driving is. Over the course of a week and thousands of kilometers of 160-200 km/hr driving I never witnessed "ego/uncourteous/unsafe" driving. No passing on right, slower traffic keep right, flash to pass if you are in the fast lane and approaching a slower car - but I didn't have to do that as they'd always move over. It's really more of a courtesy thing (flash to pass), to let the car in front know that you are coming up FAST. I expected to see all kinds of exotica flying down the 'bahn - but typically the faster cars were little Euro wagons while the Porsche convertibles and the like were in the middle lanes just cruising. It's a completely different driving culture over there. I mistakenly made an illegal right turn on a red light in Munich, the cars behind me were honking at me after I did it, lesson learned.
Interesting to note: in Germany, the Polezi will give you a ticket for impeding the flow of traffic if you are in the left lane and have people stacked up behind you no matter how fast you are driving. Over there, the right lane is for driving and the left lane is for passing.