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Comment by bb123 | Hacker News Reader

The article quickly mentions that speeding tickets don’t have a cumulative effect like they do in other countries, but doesn’t explain why. Surely this would also make the system more egalitarian - if you’re caught 3 times you lose your licence. Doesn’t matter who you are.

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Basic speeding at epsilon over the legal set point is hardly worth taking a license for. Especially when such values are often set arbitrarily.

Consider also that any three strike system will impact people who drive more miles more often. So a population of more reckless but lower mileage drivers will be impacted similarly to high mileage drivers going speed limit +/- noise.

That sounds about right. The danger one poses on the road is a function of, among other things, speed and time behind the wheel.

There are a lot of other factors that are stronger signals than the first order approximation of time behind the wheel. E.g., professional drivers get more practice and probably have fewer accidents per time or mile than casual drivers; some people look at their phone or in-car computer while driving and others don't; driving around pedestrians and bicycles is more dangerous to society than driving in times and places when the roads are empty or only have other cars (interstates); etc, etc.

Anyway, I suggest looking at three-strike drug possession laws as a good example of how dysfunctional this kind of hard-on-crime legislation is in practice.

Precisely. In Germany I could afford the speeding tickets - losing my license (for some time) would be the real punishment for me.

(Disclaimer: I don't speed)

>(Disclaimer: I don't speed)

Germany has one of the better/higher quality roads and highest speed limits in Europe, though.

Yes, it feels you are standing absolutely still when one of those mercs or porsches rocket past you (while I'm driving 130-140 km/h it still feels like standing still when some of them pass).

Germany is also among the most congested country in europe. It is a pain to drive there, as the germans are constantly rebuilding their roads, generating endless trafic jams. A8 karlsruhe- munich has never had a day without road works in 30 years. I find british motorway better, the best being french motorway, but you have to pay quite a lot to drive them

The English have pleny of jokes about their own motorways, but the also have a symphony for the M1.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0009qyz

I like the british one because they are mostly 3x3 lanes, with catseye all the way and very good rain drain capabilities.

They are way better than the awful concrete motorway that you can still find in germany

French ones cost a pretty penny, indeed. Yet, compared to most of the Europe, Germany has really decent roads without extra tolls.

Depends on where and when. On our road trip last year the Autobahn between Bremen and Köln was plain insane and probably the worst day of driving I ever had (my old car hadn't adaptive cruise control, maybe with the new one that'd be a little but better). The remainder, including the route Prague, Berlin and Hamburg, was easy going; even construction works were okay thanks to (regular) cruise control.

We did often drive on weekdays (but used public transportation in the three aforementioned cities P/B/H).

Traffic on the Autobahn follows quite extreme daily and weekly patterns. Pick the right hours and ypu can breeze through. Pick a wrong time and you'll have to contend with heavy traffic. Sometimes, the peak hours for traffic are a little bit odd. I have often seen the A81 between Ludwigsburg and Stuttgart packed on Sundays around 11pm, for example. The A8 between Stuttgart and Munich is regularly jammed on Friday afternoons.

Maybe we got lucky ;)

That doesn't mean one has to drive with full throttle, though :P it's just an option. I prefer simply starting the journey early enough and mostly go 130/140 (depending on the traffic) and make good use of recuperation when speed limits start or on steep downhill segments. That's way more relaxing than going 200 or more (which I could, uphill).

Are you in favour of three strike laws?

Do you think something dangerous has happened if you drive 70 on 60 when that's the speed everyone else is going and the city hasn't bothered to changed the speeds to match reality?

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