I'm in Germany for many years and drive tens of thousand kilometers across western Europe every year.
It is a rare sight that you even cross someone going at 200 km/h. First there are continuous construction works on the roads. Then you need to remember the constant traffic jams just about everywhere.
The picture on that article is from the autobahn in Frankfurt with direction to Darmstadt. It is one of the few places with 4 lanes where you can speed at your hearts content for about 10 kilometers and then slow down. This if you are lucky that slow drivers go the right-most lanes, often that doesn't even happen so you have to slow down again.
The only exception are fridays when driving to East Germany and Poland. On those roads you can speed and the large majority of them are just trying to get earlier home and enjoy more time with family.
Quite frankly, the most dangerous road in Western Europe have got to be French highways. In those you get young kids doing all kind of dangerous moves and speeding right behind you without respect. German drivers are noticeably more mature, you drive fast but with experience without thrills.
I'd take the French highway over the Autobahn any day. Yes it costs money, but people are driving in a much more civilized manner and they are well maintained.
I'm sorry but you certainly never had to cross France from one side to the other in recent years.
My favorite highways are the Spanish ones. You can drive for hours completely calm without a worry in the world. Very long straight roads with calm people driving. It is a complete breeze to drive for hundreds of kilometers without stressing you. The only problem is when driving close to urban centres over there.
If you look on statistical data, you will see that France keeps increasing the death on the roads since the past ten years, whereas Germany keeps lowering: https://etsc.eu/euroadsafetydata/
Thanks for the statistics, that's interesting. It can also be misleading, from what I could find, less than 10% of traffic deaths occur on motorways vs. rural/city roads and motorway deaths have actually been decreasing in France steadily since 1990 (this is only from a quick Google search).
Edit: According to the OECD itf (random source I found on the internet ;)) Germany had 317 deaths on motorways vs 201 in France in 2022.
> You are either German are never driven a German autobahn. Cars racing at 200kmh+ just 30cm or so from you is not fun anywhere.
I am not German, but I drive in Germany frequently and I find it liberating when you see the all restrictions lifted sign and I can just floor it for the pure fun of it.
At first I found it pretty intense, but then when I saw space wagons doing 200+ with kids in the back I calmed down and its business as usual now. I just need to remember not to flash slower drivers to signal them to get out of the way.
And this is what upsets me, the no limit Autobahn is part of Germany and now under the guise of climate fight someone wants to take this away from people that actually enjoy it.
> Cars racing at 200kmh+ just 30cm or so from you is not fun anywhere.
Funny that this only happens to people who are advocating for a speed limit. Maybe you should stick to the center of your lane which should be at least 2.50m on the Autobahn. With an average car with a width of 1.80m (VW Golf for example), there should be even 35cm space to the left side of your lane.
But I have to share the same street at my usual 120 max speed I am used to.
I can just say for me German autobahn with its rasers and semi hidden police vehicles around every other corner is always a scary experience. I honestly felt more safe in Bangkok on a scooter than some of these public racing tracks near Munich.
