When traffic comes to a standstill, German drivers instantly shift left and right to create a Rettungsgasse, an emergency corridor so ambulances and firefighters can fly through at full speed
I didn‘t see any comment mentioning this, but not creating an emergency lane only 10 years ago was a huge problem in Germany. Then the government increased the fines massively and started a big awareness campaign. It took several years, but now it is the norm.
Intervention and change is possible as long as their is political will.
Interesting. I was going to reply that I have been in plenty of traffic jams on the Autobahn that did not have such a lane, but that was indeed more than 10 years ago!
That push in Germany quickly got wider EU traction & it's finally starting (5~10 years ago?) to be the norm in the main countries too (not just for when the traffic stops completely but even in cases of slow moving traffic like below 60 or maybe 80km/h).
Well yeah.... Because it doesn't look like people are making room for an emergency vehicle lol
Without context I wouldn't know what was going on here. US law tells you to pull over to the same side so my first thought wasn't emergency vehicles. I couldn't blame a US driver for not knowing German road law
This isn't pulling over because there's an emergency vehicle actively there. They're pulling over because traffic is blocked up, for the possibility that an emergency vehicle may need through. It doesn't decrease throughput bit it does let emergency vehicles through. If people abuse it then throughput stays the same and they lose the extra benefit.
Fair enough but my point still stands. People aren't gonna figure out why it's happening without being taught to do it themselves so yeah Americans would drive right through
Honestly I blame speed limits. On the autobahn you know “if you’re slower, move over”. In the US, inevitably there is someone camping the left lane saying “I’m doing the limit so i have every right to use this as the long distance lane”
I think I can count on one hand the amount of times I've seen a US cop pull someone over while going over the speed limit. Most of the time they are sitting in their cars doing fuckall. Other than getting overpaid to scroll on their phones of course.
It still amazes me when I see a huge pedestrian-annihilation-class pickup truck fly past a cop doing 90 mph in a 60 mph zone and absolutely nothing happens. I think to myself, surely they are going to get pulled over. That's felony speeding.
Nope. That would require the cop to get off their ass and do something. The only time that happens in this country is when there's a constitutionally protected protest happening or when someone with dark skin is in the vicinity.
Source: I spent nearly 20 years as a medic and a firefighter. And I have had cops arrest and ticket drivers for driving HUA, (Head Up Ass around emergency vehicles.) It's an easy ticket.
Right? Around here, each side of a divided highway has two travel lanes marked. There is a narrow shoulder on the left, and a wide shoulder on the right, either of which is adequate for emergency vehicles.
The intended purpose is to facilitate future construction. There is enough room on each side of the median for three lanes plus a narrow shoulder. They can put up a temporary k-rail median and repaint the lane lines to move a lane of traffic across the normal median. They can completely close a lane of traffic for repairs, while retaining at least two lanes (plus a narrow breakdown lane) in each direction.
Using a the shoulder for emergency vehicles is not as good, as they are usually smaller and they are the place where those with damaged vehicles should stop. This means you cannot go as fast on them as you can in the lane shown in the video.
Exactly. They have to split the red sea like this in countries like Germany because there is no shoulder. Even in the video you can see if they go off to the side they're ending up in a ditch.
Nope, im pretty sure the cars on the right are driving on the shoulder. If you look at the opposite side, there is a shoulder that nobody is driving on.
Even drivers in the US are good about it 99.9% of the time if there is anywhere to go, they do get out of the way and stay out of the way. There are heavy fines. And if the Amp-a-Lamps driver can get your plate number, the cops WILL go look for you.
Source: I spent nearly 20 years in Amber-Lamps and fire trucks.
Probably still massively speeds up response times though. I imagine it wouldn't be that hard to squeeze 2 cars in that given space allowing the emergency vehicle to get past the person not following the rules.
Well, it's a high-speed 3-lane road that would fit 5 parked cars curb to curb so Rettungsgasse is where the space goes. Most other roads can barely yield 1 lane but emergency drivers are skilled and European fire trucks are not 1.5 lanes wide; still better to use a narrow free lane between 2 stationary ones rather than one of 2 crawling ones
Prisoners dilemma doesn't work when people are thinking of tomorrow. Once you take into consideration how your actions affect the decisions other people make in the future, it is always better to cooperate. That's a big assumption from people, but if they don't, they are not acting rationally in their own interest like in the dilemma.
I'm pretty sure this comment is not complaining about people driving through the gap, it's about people who are too absent minded to create a gap in the first place. In that case that's not prisoners dilemma at all, they don't get anything from not moving to the side.
As a german I'm always flabbergasted when people from other countries are amazed by that. It makes sense to do that - help get's faster to the accident and therefore the road will be cleared much faster than if the emergency services are stuck somewhere in the traffic jam. Do you have this strange behavior in other parts of your daily life, too?
Yes, but you're ignoring the advantages of smart motorways. By removing the hard shoulder, that ensures people who break down can block an entire lane and endanger themselves and others in the process! Smart! Bonus! Win! 👍👍👍👍
I think it comes from having a very low population density for such a long time: the roads were empty enough that you could "own the road". Now, same roads with five times the density and that doesn't work out like that anymore but the mindset persists.
Americans would be too angry about the one or two cars or motorcycles that might occasionally take advantage to be able to do this. Even merging results in a lot of grumpy drivers trying to prevent "cutting".
meanwhile if you did this in my home country, half the people there would just pass to the corridor never questioning for a single second why that corridor exists and why all the others are not using it
Anecdotally, 40-ish years ago, one of my mom's relatives came to visit from Poland. There are a whole lot of wild stories about that visit and from when my mom visited Poland around that same time that highlighted a lot of differences between life in the US and from behind the iron curtain at the time.
While he was here, her relative was amazed to see cars pulling off to the side to let emergency vehicles pass, that was apparently something totally new to him.
Which gets fucking expensive quick, because it's illegal and the probability is high that police and / or ambulance already are at the end of your race track
Here in the UK we do something similar, though not until we see the flashing lights. We pull across as far as we can in order to allow as much space as possible.
That is the law in the US as well. TWICE I've seen someone ignore it and both times other citizens (in cars as well as pedestrians) bully the driver into following it.
Driver: I didn't have anywhere to go!
Bike messenger: Turn into the fuckin alley or I'm breaking all your lights
Just the other day I watched some luxury SUV sitting dumbfounded in a left turn lane with an ambulance flashing lights and blaring the horn behind it. Oh yeah, the left turn lane was the one that led to the emergency room parking lot. I wish that bike messenger was around then
i'm just trying to think of the synchronicity of this. i did the running sports in school because i got good legs. i did the kicking martial arts thing because i got good legs. i am doing the leg exercise midlife crisis thing because blah blah. i'm wondering if i should get some mall ninja throwing stars to go with my new angry midlife crisis this sounds fun
That's how it works in the UK. You see a blue light in your rearview, then everyone tries to find space and the emergency vehicle proceeds at a clip of 5-10mph, while the affected people ahead burn/bleed etc.
I guess so. I think there are a lot of service roads onto the motorway that the public doesn't have access to, which means in theory the emergency services would never have to drive that far through traffic. But I'm guessing.
This needs to be taught in the US and it needs to be enforced. If there’s two lanes on the road.(And I mean, two lanes going one way two lanes going the other way) Then, if it comes to a standstill everybody part so you have a center area that emergency services could drive in
Do emergency vehicles have right of way in the US? Ive seen so many videos of people blocking fire trucks and ambulances. A guy i knew got a hefty fine here in Norway for driving behind an ambulance. We don’t do like the germans, but we immediately make way for all blue lights
Legally, yes, it's even in the info they give at the DMV and I've even seen some people pull to the side (if for no other reason to copy those in front of them) but I know if we left an opening in the center in standstill traffic, some asshole would zoom down it almost immediately. And then probably several more, because again, they just copy each other.
I've had people follow me through traffic on the highway, doing what I do, and when they inevitably ride so close they can count the hairs on my head, I slow down to like 35; and they. Never. Get. The fucking. Hint.
I was driving in on an interstate one time, no other cars were around us, I was in the left lane going almost 80 and the person behind me was right up on my ass. So I go to the right lane and slow down to let them pass, and this motherfucker keeps right up on my ass, so I literally slow down to like 20, and they slow right on down with me for about 10 seconds until they finally realize what the fuck is going on.
People here in the US are all fucking goldfish I swear to God.
I can make it a good solid guess as to what happened there. They probably had adaptive cruise control running. For those who don’t know adaptive cruise control is it’s a sensor that will adjust your speed to perfectly match the speed of the person in front of you. If you are using cruise control. The problem is by default adaptive cruise control is set to the shortest distance possible. So it , from the person who is in front , from their perspective it looks like you are riding their ass. It should never be set to the shortest distance possible it should be set so you have about a three second following distance. Most people never adjust this because they’re stupid.
Now, why did they follow you when you change lanes? I’m going to call them a lemming. Well, the other person moved over so I’ll move over too. So as you slow down the adaptive cruise control makes them keep slowing down. And they’re not paying attention until like you said you get down about 30 miles an hour. Then they realize what’s going on.
Here’s the fun part when they pull out to go around you. If they speed up normally their engine doesn’t get gunned really hard. But if they just pull out, the adaptive cruise control kicks in and realize oh there’s nobody in front of me and I’m supposed to be going 80 mph. And the car will absolutely freaking gun it. It’ll go into overdrive. And if you aren’t prepared for that it’s quite the jolt.
And yeah they are basically goldfish and lemmings out there.
The particular case in my story didn't have a super recent car that could have adaptive cruise control (also, ime ACC is never set at the closest but default, but either the second or farthest setting), so they were definitely just driving terribly.
That’s interesting that your experiences that adaptive cruise control is never set to the closest. Every time I go to test driving new vehicle and when I say new, I mean very low miles like 15 miles or something. I checked the adaptive cruise control. It’s always set to the closest possible setting.
Yeah you would need like 99.9% of the drivers in the US to agree to this. I don't think you could even get 70% of the selfish fucks on our roads to do this. Guaranteed 3 out of 10 cars would wonder why everyone else is a bunch of losers and head straight down the middle, which would never actually exist in the first place because 7 out of 10 cars being considerate is nowhere near enough...
Enforced is the big thing. I don't know why police departments keep getting more money, thr money is right there on the highway waiting for them to get it. Every time drive I see people crossing the double white, abusing the big lane, speeding, swerving, even road raging. We have enough police in my city that there could be a cop in each directly every half mile of all of our interstates and they would make a huge profit. Just enforce the freaking laws we already have. Guaranteed they'll make that budget shortfall.
And we haven't even gotten into the whole "Drib up to ten over because no one cares"
loads of commenters in this thread are saying that when cars part it doesn't form "an uninterrupted lane" because inevitably there are obstacles, like people who don't do it, or don't leave enough room, or what have you.
shoulders aren't really littered with broken down cars.
Shoulders are still for emergency stops even when the traffic is standing & ppl might leave their vehicles.
The middle of the road is more traveled & is on average cleaner of debris that could eg damage a tyre. Also less chances of ppl walking there.
It's just that someone improved on a working shoulder system with what is statistically a bit better one (that works even in cases where there is no shoulder). And it didn't cost much (basically just marketing to get ppl to understand it).
We give our emergency traffic both the left and the right shoulder to get where they need to go. You give them one lane in the middle; we give them two lanes on the sides.
The left shoulder is an uninterrupted lane. The right shoulder is our breakdown lane. We very rarely enter or exit a divided highway on the left.
The shoulders in Germany and to my understanding most of Europe are used to give broken down vehicles space to change a tire or wait for service in safety, or to allow construction site to move the lanes to the sides without merging. Traffic jams are often a result of to much traffic, construction or accidents and often enough cause cars to break down. Hence the shoulders are often blocked in situations, where the emergency vehicles are needed.
Also, there are many, of not most, streets without shoulders. The Autobahn/ National routes being the exception.
Also the shoulders in Germany, the US and UK are in my experience rather bumpy. So driving in them at full speed can be a bit risky.
I thing the argument for this method is that it is universal: traffic is not moving? Move over and make space and allow emergency vehicles to pass through at full speed.
The shoulders here are for "emergency stops" not "emergency vehicles", an abundance could crash, drive over someone going for a piss, or get stuck behind a broken vehicle.
Also there is more change for debris in (less used) emergency lane than in the middle of the two inner lanes (less chance for a crash or flat tyre).
How can there be traffic if there are two empty lanes? We’ve already added more lanes, the traffic has been solved. If the ambulance needs to get through, they should add a fifth lane. (/s)
Yep, we do not have the wide ass shoulders on our Autobahn network. We also know how to merge using the entire merging lane and the zipper effect. In the USA, it's cross the white line at lower speeds to create an accordion effect.
It’s not just that we don’t enforce any of this crap but we actually encourage it.
Near me there’s one highway where they open the shoulder as a lane during rush hour, intentionally and legally, as the cheap way to widen the road. No one seems to care that it makes accidents bigger, blocks emergency vehicles and people get used to it and do it everywhere
So, that technique is actually an attempt to avoid a major problem in road development: you make a road, and now it's easier to travel so people use it and it's congested. So you make it bigger and traffic flows again, and so more people start using it and it gets congested. This keeps going until you have the freeways in Texas: 26 lanes of bad traffic.
Instead, one notion is to make the road wider only when it needs to be. It usually keeps traffic more mitigated for a few years before habits adjust.
The real fix is to start removing lanes from the highways. People will find other ways to get there and schedule travel as needed. Or they'll move out of the suburbs so they can get to work, or, the most ridiculous notion, they'll vote for the creation of the most basic of light rail systems.
Realistically they'll bulldoze another 50 mile stretch of urban housing so people can drive easier for the 4 busy hours a day for the next few years, until we eventually entirely demolish the cities to make way for the roads that bring people into them.
The thing is we do have better options, but they’d need to spend money
We have a pretty good commuter rail service, so one option is to just let the highway get congested. Ideally improve rail service but we shouldn’t even need to
The real problem is bottlenecks. Let’s spend the money to fix some ramps and interchanges. We don’t need to worry about more lanes if the traffic moves
People might not like me pointing this out, and, admittedly I've never been to Germany, but doing such a thing does not matter in the US since there seems to be no real shoulder to this road. Anywhere in the US, whatever emergency vehicles that need to get to places don't require this at all - they will drive by on the shoulder of the road at break neck speeds even if no car has moved on that road in the last 10 minutes.
In the picture the right most cars have switched to the shoulder to make the Rettungsgasse big. I forgot the exact reasons but the shoulder is not used for emergency vehicles on purpose.
It's bcs it's intended for 'emergency stops' (including ppl going for a piss), 'emergency vehicles' (ambulances, etc) have a safer & more predictable way down the middle of the road away from the edges of the road.
There shouldn't be anyone in the middle of the road, but there could be someone on the emergency lane.
It’s not just the stopped cars that might be on the shoulder / emergency lane, but it’s also that there might be more loose stones there and in winter snow and ice. The middle of the road is then safer.
In Europe usually you get a fine at most. Imagine being on a road trip with a 3yo in the back, if they say they have to pee it's not like "I hope this queue moves in the next 30 minutes, it's RIGHT NOW! So off on the shoulder they go.
It's not (tho the smol children bit might be a rare occurrence) but ppl do leave their cars when stuck on the same spot for hours (which isn't that common altogether). There are other emergencies too (eg being sick).
I did piss on the road in a snow blizzard once, we were stuck on a very hilly motorway bcs a few buses & some trucks on shit (summer?) tyres went sideways blocking all lanes (others, trucks included, had no issues) but I didn't even step away from the car really bcs the visibly was so poor at some point that it was cool (in fact I was facing the incoming lanes opposite). We were there several hours tho.
In the same situation - after already not moving for at least half an hour a bus driver from a few cars behind me came so ask me (and I assume others?) to move my car just a bit forward so he could get to the freed lane (like op's pic). Once he explained the reasoning I replied with several swear words in his native language & the fucker absolutely knew what a shitty thing he was trying to do.
That kind of sex offender thing (exposing yourself) is treated differently here afaik - the laws aren't that different (eg when you can be naked in your home next to a window), but the application is (I don't imagine someone actually seeing your private bits if you aren't standing on the actual road & facing traffic). Also getting on a public sex offender list for urinating in public sounds like something cops disproportionately use to fuck the lives of innocents just for fun.
Unless they're my MIL, who was confused by the sight and, upon getting it explained to her, loudly exclaimed she'd never done that.
But I'm not sure if that was just an early spell of Dementia. I can't fathom that she's never seen it in fifty years of driving, or at least at some point in the last ten years.
Do you see 2 white lines inside the empty space? No? Then it's not two lanes being kept free. Everyone is just at the very edge of their own lane. Sometimes lanes are just wide, it doesn't usually look like this.
Over there they really do love to say 'that's brilliant but it's absolutely impossible that would ever work over here in basically the same or easier situation bcs over here is not over there'.
Okay but what if I have to take a major shit, is it cool if I skip ahead to the next exit? I get that the idea is everyone is making it safer on the off chance an emergency vehicle needs to go by, but we got this wide open strip, so if someone has a (minor) emergency, are they a jerk for taking advantage of it to get off the road, or...?
I watched a woman get out of her car during a traffic jam (on a packed freeway) drop trou and just piss in the road right in front of me. Didn't try to hide to one side or open the doors to block the sightline. Just busted piss in the absolute middle of the road.
Either she was mad out of fucks or she took a dare. Didnt even wipe. Just hiked her pants up and got back in the car.
No, you will be fined upwards of 240€, lose your license for a month, and get 2 points on your license (8 points means you lose it permanently, you will have to redo the license and take a so-called "idiot-test" beforehand).
No you haven't. I've never seen this. I regularly see people who use the shoulders as passing lanes the moment traffic slows a little bit. Then completely block them. I see drivers trying to get in front or behind an emergency vehicle to take advantage of the rest of the drivers moving to the side with a complete disregard for how they're slowing everything down. I've seen drivers proudly park their car infront of an emergency vehicle and block them, then honk and flip the firetruck off for trying to pass them. I've seen drivers shoot at emergency responders because they were blocking the highway. I have never seen American drivers making an emergency lane.
While I've never seen this, it's worth noting that driving culture is pretty significantly different across the US even in the same state but different cities.
Merging in Philly? Bring your knife. Merging in Pittsburgh? They've already made room.
So it's possible that this person at least sees more pleasant driving behavior wherever they're at in the US.
Using emergency lights and sirens is vastly unnecessary.
It is clearly much more dangerous to the ambulance crew & patient. Not to mention the other people that might be injured in an accident related to an emergency response.
Crash statistics clearly indicate the danger of emergency responses. It's simple common sense to understand how dangerous it is to navigate a road full of drivers that can be unpredictable.
Correlation != Causality. If an emergency vehicle needs to get somewhere fast, it will run sirens and lights to drive faster.
Faster verhicles are obviously more likely to get into accidents. Still, this seems like a reasonable tradeoff to keep response times low overall.
I severely doubt that sirens and lights by themselves cause any significant accidents.
I didn‘t see any comment mentioning this, but not creating an emergency lane only 10 years ago was a huge problem in Germany. Then the government increased the fines massively and started a big awareness campaign. It took several years, but now it is the norm.
Intervention and change is possible as long as their is political will.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rettungsgasse
Interesting. I was going to reply that I have been in plenty of traffic jams on the Autobahn that did not have such a lane, but that was indeed more than 10 years ago!
That push in Germany quickly got wider EU traction & it's finally starting (5~10 years ago?) to be the norm in the main countries too (not just for when the traffic stops completely but even in cases of slow moving traffic like below 60 or maybe 80km/h).
Thx!
damn that is a long article
so frustrating to drive in germany and then come back to the us with so many inconsiderate idiots around.
Go drive in an Asian country and come back. The difference is incredible
Yeah, in the US there's zero chance that opening isn't filled by drivers who think they're more important than everyone else.
Well yeah.... Because it doesn't look like people are making room for an emergency vehicle lol
Without context I wouldn't know what was going on here. US law tells you to pull over to the same side so my first thought wasn't emergency vehicles. I couldn't blame a US driver for not knowing German road law
This isn't pulling over because there's an emergency vehicle actively there. They're pulling over because traffic is blocked up, for the possibility that an emergency vehicle may need through. It doesn't decrease throughput bit it does let emergency vehicles through. If people abuse it then throughput stays the same and they lose the extra benefit.
Fair enough but my point still stands. People aren't gonna figure out why it's happening without being taught to do it themselves so yeah Americans would drive right through
Honestly I blame speed limits. On the autobahn you know “if you’re slower, move over”. In the US, inevitably there is someone camping the left lane saying “I’m doing the limit so i have every right to use this as the long distance lane”
Buuut if they're going the speed limit, how are you supposed to overtake them anyway? You wouldn't break the speed limit, would you?
Old wisdom says at any time you can drive 10% more than the limit and face no issues
I think I can count on one hand the amount of times I've seen a US cop pull someone over while going over the speed limit. Most of the time they are sitting in their cars doing fuckall. Other than getting overpaid to scroll on their phones of course.
It still amazes me when I see a huge pedestrian-annihilation-class pickup truck fly past a cop doing 90 mph in a 60 mph zone and absolutely nothing happens. I think to myself, surely they are going to get pulled over. That's felony speeding.
Nope. That would require the cop to get off their ass and do something. The only time that happens in this country is when there's a constitutionally protected protest happening or when someone with dark skin is in the vicinity.
Unless you're black
Ffffuuuuuu, I'd definitely download a car!
You'll figure it out in 10 years when your old enough to get your license.
It still boils down to individual vs collective importance and values.
He is right. Do not cross the speed limit or make others cross it. Or if you are really in hurry just use right lane don't be beemer guy
Drive rush hour here daily, you'll notice we have a fair share of our own inconsiderate idiots here.
Oh and literal reckless murderers.
I had a very similar feeling moving back from driving in The Netherlands to driving in Portugal.
(Mind you, in Portugal cars do reliably pull over to let emergency vehicles through)
In America it would instantly be filled by cunts trying to cheat their way through traffic.
In Germany, we have laws for that.
...which are enforced?
Because that's one major issue with the legal system of the USA.
If you block the ambulance in Germany, you get punished nowadays.
Whether video evidence of driving through it without blocking an ambulance is enough? I don't know.
Even trying to enforce the rules is a win in my book.
They are enforced.
Source: I spent nearly 20 years as a medic and a firefighter. And I have had cops arrest and ticket drivers for driving HUA, (Head Up Ass around emergency vehicles.) It's an easy ticket.
Noice!
But it's still an issue.
In america they have guns for that
We literally have this. We call it the "shoulder".
And idiots try to drive on it to skip traffic.
There are shoulders in Germany as well, but they prefer that the ambulance drive through the middle lane.
Right? Around here, each side of a divided highway has two travel lanes marked. There is a narrow shoulder on the left, and a wide shoulder on the right, either of which is adequate for emergency vehicles.
The intended purpose is to facilitate future construction. There is enough room on each side of the median for three lanes plus a narrow shoulder. They can put up a temporary k-rail median and repaint the lane lines to move a lane of traffic across the normal median. They can completely close a lane of traffic for repairs, while retaining at least two lanes (plus a narrow breakdown lane) in each direction.
Using a the shoulder for emergency vehicles is not as good, as they are usually smaller and they are the place where those with damaged vehicles should stop. This means you cannot go as fast on them as you can in the lane shown in the video.
I'd recommend going exactly the same speed on either, and it's not particularly fast.
Going fast is kind of essential for emergency response vehicles.
Exactly. They have to split the red sea like this in countries like Germany because there is no shoulder. Even in the video you can see if they go off to the side they're ending up in a ditch.
Nope, im pretty sure the cars on the right are driving on the shoulder. If you look at the opposite side, there is a shoulder that nobody is driving on.
Most Autobahnen have a Seitenstreifen, which is essentially a shoulder, but in German. Maybe look things up before stating them?
Even drivers in the US are good about it 99.9% of the time if there is anywhere to go, they do get out of the way and stay out of the way. There are heavy fines. And if the Amp-a-Lamps driver can get your plate number, the cops WILL go look for you.
Source: I spent nearly 20 years in Amber-Lamps and fire trucks.
That’s the plan. In real life, only few ambulances manage “to fly through”, there are always some jerks ignoring this rule.
Probably still massively speeds up response times though. I imagine it wouldn't be that hard to squeeze 2 cars in that given space allowing the emergency vehicle to get past the person not following the rules.
The photo example is extreme. It’s usually narrower.
Still though, Ive seen traffic in NYC keep an ambulance for two lights.
Well, it's a high-speed 3-lane road that would fit 5 parked cars curb to curb so Rettungsgasse is where the space goes. Most other roads can barely yield 1 lane but emergency drivers are skilled and European fire trucks are not 1.5 lanes wide; still better to use a narrow free lane between 2 stationary ones rather than one of 2 crawling ones
Prisoners dilemma always wins.
Yeah but not in the way I think you mean: https://ncase.me/trust/
As a german I'm always flabbergasted when people from other countries are amazed by that. It makes sense to do that - help get's faster to the accident and therefore the road will be cleared much faster than if the emergency services are stuck somewhere in the traffic jam. Do you have this strange behavior in other parts of your daily life, too?
This would require people capable of thinking and having empathy for others
Well that's what we teach children here 🤷
Here in America you'd get people peeling through the middle
That's what's amazing to me. Every single driver resisting the urge to cut the line when the opportunity is right there? Couldn't be America.
It's also severly punished
In the US? You mean other than keeping the shittiest health care system in the world just to be sure no money would go to someone who can't pay?
Around here, emergency vehicles just drive in the shoulder when this happens.
We Brits got rid of a lot of them (and laughably called them "smart" motorways), so now we just sit there and watch people burn.
Yes, but you're ignoring the advantages of smart motorways. By removing the hard shoulder, that ensures people who break down can block an entire lane and endanger themselves and others in the process! Smart! Bonus! Win! 👍👍👍👍
Our culture is narcissism
I know atleast one country where half the people there would try to use that corridor. So yea it requires some couple levels in civilization.
The idea that another road user might have higher priority is unfortunately anathema to drivers here.
If this even happened here the corridor would simply be full of utes.
Excuse me, your honor, full of youths.
I understood that reference
I must be broken as often I'll let a bus out expressly thinking that a vehicle with 20 people in has to be more important than me.
I'm not in the US thou
Letting busses out: awesome.
It's actually really relaxing and de-stressing to be a considerate driver... right up until the ass tailgating you gets all uppity.
I'm in the UK so it's the norm (saying that, not sure if that applies to London). If they're indicating, you wouldn't dream of not letting them out.
It's more my thought pattern as I do
NZ here. We're, generally, incredibly arrogant drivers.
I think it comes from having a very low population density for such a long time: the roads were empty enough that you could "own the road". Now, same roads with five times the density and that doesn't work out like that anymore but the mindset persists.
Americans would be too angry about the one or two cars or motorcycles that might occasionally take advantage to be able to do this. Even merging results in a lot of grumpy drivers trying to prevent "cutting".
Great idea, though.
Driving through the rettungsgasse is punished very heavily though
Americans literally do the same thing...
meanwhile if you did this in my home country, half the people there would just pass to the corridor never questioning for a single second why that corridor exists and why all the others are not using it
Same! Are you in Korea?
nope turns out there is more than one in that case
Anecdotally, 40-ish years ago, one of my mom's relatives came to visit from Poland. There are a whole lot of wild stories about that visit and from when my mom visited Poland around that same time that highlighted a lot of differences between life in the US and from behind the iron curtain at the time.
While he was here, her relative was amazed to see cars pulling off to the side to let emergency vehicles pass, that was apparently something totally new to him.
The intrusive thought to just pull out and gun it down that road is fucking strong.
i see that regularly, when an ambulance carves out a lane there's always one or two impatient mfs following it
Which gets fucking expensive quick, because it's illegal and the probability is high that police and / or ambulance already are at the end of your race track
I mean that's why it's an intrusive thought instead of a good idea.
thats seemingly what we do in britain!
"High-ho, Silver! AWAAaYyYy!"
Might be legal if you're on a motorcycle. If it isn't, it should be. No reason to not allow lane filtering.
A fast moving vehicle bearing down on an accident site? Nope.
What are you talking about?
There's a reason I called it an intrusive thought...
/s makes it clearer, you're not just callinge an asshole FYI.
Here in the UK we do something similar, though not until we see the flashing lights. We pull across as far as we can in order to allow as much space as possible.
That is the law in the US as well. TWICE I've seen someone ignore it and both times other citizens (in cars as well as pedestrians) bully the driver into following it.
Driver: I didn't have anywhere to go!
Bike messenger: Turn into the fuckin alley or I'm breaking all your lights
Just the other day I watched some luxury SUV sitting dumbfounded in a left turn lane with an ambulance flashing lights and blaring the horn behind it. Oh yeah, the left turn lane was the one that led to the emergency room parking lot. I wish that bike messenger was around then
Bike messenger are the real police. They'll give a homeless guy a sandwich a then turn around and beat the shit out of a pickpocket.
You do not fuck with bike messengers, they're pissed off at the world and right to be. Plus they know all the escape routes.
i'm just trying to think of the synchronicity of this. i did the running sports in school because i got good legs. i did the kicking martial arts thing because i got good legs. i am doing the leg exercise midlife crisis thing because blah blah. i'm wondering if i should get some mall ninja throwing stars to go with my new angry midlife crisis this sounds fun
And most time not until the blue lights are right up someone's ass
wait hold on. i don't see an emergency vehicle. you just do this because traffic is stopped?
how do you think it would work if they only did it when there was an ambulance?
That's how it works in the UK. You see a blue light in your rearview, then everyone tries to find space and the emergency vehicle proceeds at a clip of 5-10mph, while the affected people ahead burn/bleed etc.
I wonder how much more time they would have needed in this example:
https://youtu.be/7kPT7VHVTb8
I guess 10 minutes?
I guess so. I think there are a lot of service roads onto the motorway that the public doesn't have access to, which means in theory the emergency services would never have to drive that far through traffic. But I'm guessing.
Yeah same in France
Same way as in statesia. It wouldn't
I mean that's kinda what we do in France and it works mostly fine I think ?
Yes, we are taught to move left or right to create a middle lane during a traffic jam.
Yes
this makes my "i must sort my wires into different lengths and colors" gland so very happy. i must learn your ways.
This needs to be taught in the US and it needs to be enforced. If there’s two lanes on the road.(And I mean, two lanes going one way two lanes going the other way) Then, if it comes to a standstill everybody part so you have a center area that emergency services could drive in
Doing something for the good of people I don't even know? Sounds dangerously close to socialism! /s
Do emergency vehicles have right of way in the US? Ive seen so many videos of people blocking fire trucks and ambulances. A guy i knew got a hefty fine here in Norway for driving behind an ambulance. We don’t do like the germans, but we immediately make way for all blue lights
Legally, yes, it's even in the info they give at the DMV and I've even seen some people pull to the side (if for no other reason to copy those in front of them) but I know if we left an opening in the center in standstill traffic, some asshole would zoom down it almost immediately. And then probably several more, because again, they just copy each other.
I've had people follow me through traffic on the highway, doing what I do, and when they inevitably ride so close they can count the hairs on my head, I slow down to like 35; and they. Never. Get. The fucking. Hint.
I was driving in on an interstate one time, no other cars were around us, I was in the left lane going almost 80 and the person behind me was right up on my ass. So I go to the right lane and slow down to let them pass, and this motherfucker keeps right up on my ass, so I literally slow down to like 20, and they slow right on down with me for about 10 seconds until they finally realize what the fuck is going on.
People here in the US are all fucking goldfish I swear to God.
I can make it a good solid guess as to what happened there. They probably had adaptive cruise control running. For those who don’t know adaptive cruise control is it’s a sensor that will adjust your speed to perfectly match the speed of the person in front of you. If you are using cruise control. The problem is by default adaptive cruise control is set to the shortest distance possible. So it , from the person who is in front , from their perspective it looks like you are riding their ass. It should never be set to the shortest distance possible it should be set so you have about a three second following distance. Most people never adjust this because they’re stupid.
Now, why did they follow you when you change lanes? I’m going to call them a lemming. Well, the other person moved over so I’ll move over too. So as you slow down the adaptive cruise control makes them keep slowing down. And they’re not paying attention until like you said you get down about 30 miles an hour. Then they realize what’s going on.
Here’s the fun part when they pull out to go around you. If they speed up normally their engine doesn’t get gunned really hard. But if they just pull out, the adaptive cruise control kicks in and realize oh there’s nobody in front of me and I’m supposed to be going 80 mph. And the car will absolutely freaking gun it. It’ll go into overdrive. And if you aren’t prepared for that it’s quite the jolt.
And yeah they are basically goldfish and lemmings out there.
The particular case in my story didn't have a super recent car that could have adaptive cruise control (also, ime ACC is never set at the closest but default, but either the second or farthest setting), so they were definitely just driving terribly.
That’s interesting that your experiences that adaptive cruise control is never set to the closest. Every time I go to test driving new vehicle and when I say new, I mean very low miles like 15 miles or something. I checked the adaptive cruise control. It’s always set to the closest possible setting.
Logical, reasonable people do. Entitled ass holes usually do not move.
Yeah you would need like 99.9% of the drivers in the US to agree to this. I don't think you could even get 70% of the selfish fucks on our roads to do this. Guaranteed 3 out of 10 cars would wonder why everyone else is a bunch of losers and head straight down the middle, which would never actually exist in the first place because 7 out of 10 cars being considerate is nowhere near enough...
Half of them would be too busy drooling into their laps to even notice what was going on.
Enforced is the big thing. I don't know why police departments keep getting more money, thr money is right there on the highway waiting for them to get it. Every time drive I see people crossing the double white, abusing the big lane, speeding, swerving, even road raging. We have enough police in my city that there could be a cop in each directly every half mile of all of our interstates and they would make a huge profit. Just enforce the freaking laws we already have. Guaranteed they'll make that budget shortfall.
And we haven't even gotten into the whole "Drib up to ten over because no one cares"
That's crazy, all these suckers waiting while there is an open lane right there!!
There are easier ways to say you drive a Mercedes.
I dont get it.
Here the shoulder is traversable. Like its wide enough to drive down.
We dont do this because emergency services just drive down the shoulder.
What would you prefer? An uninterrupted lane or one where you have to get past broken down cars/merging traffic, ...
In a situation where every second can count, it's easy to see why Germany (among other countries) does this.
loads of commenters in this thread are saying that when cars part it doesn't form "an uninterrupted lane" because inevitably there are obstacles, like people who don't do it, or don't leave enough room, or what have you.
shoulders aren't really littered with broken down cars.
Shoulders are still for emergency stops even when the traffic is standing & ppl might leave their vehicles.
The middle of the road is more traveled & is on average cleaner of debris that could eg damage a tyre. Also less chances of ppl walking there.
It's just that someone improved on a working shoulder system with what is statistically a bit better one (that works even in cases where there is no shoulder). And it didn't cost much (basically just marketing to get ppl to understand it).
You know, why not be better if we can be better?
Because, those thread is full of people saying that in practice it never looks like this.
I always see this tho, and I'm not even from Germany.
It might not be that perfectly straight, but I can clearly see it as a better practice that the 10+ years ago (afaik the data shows that too).
This isn't just for standing traffic, it's for rush hours too.
(If someone wants to maliciously stop emergency vehicles they can do that on shoulders too.)
We have an uninterrupted emergency lane.
We give our emergency traffic both the left and the right shoulder to get where they need to go. You give them one lane in the middle; we give them two lanes on the sides.
The left shoulder is an uninterrupted lane. The right shoulder is our breakdown lane. We very rarely enter or exit a divided highway on the left.
The shoulders in Germany and to my understanding most of Europe are used to give broken down vehicles space to change a tire or wait for service in safety, or to allow construction site to move the lanes to the sides without merging. Traffic jams are often a result of to much traffic, construction or accidents and often enough cause cars to break down. Hence the shoulders are often blocked in situations, where the emergency vehicles are needed. Also, there are many, of not most, streets without shoulders. The Autobahn/ National routes being the exception.
Also the shoulders in Germany, the US and UK are in my experience rather bumpy. So driving in them at full speed can be a bit risky.
I thing the argument for this method is that it is universal: traffic is not moving? Move over and make space and allow emergency vehicles to pass through at full speed.
We dont have shoulders here, on account of all the road construction.
The shoulders here are for "emergency stops" not "emergency vehicles", an abundance could crash, drive over someone going for a piss, or get stuck behind a broken vehicle.
Also there is more change for debris in (less used) emergency lane than in the middle of the two inner lanes (less chance for a crash or flat tyre).
A+ happy German narration.
How can there be traffic if there are two empty lanes? We’ve already added more lanes, the traffic has been solved. If the ambulance needs to get through, they should add a fifth lane. (/s)
In Paris, government people and/or VIP use fake ambulances to take advantage of this and avoid being stuck with us peons.
As an Austrian, this works good but not always so good as it should
Long roadworks remain a problem too.
Yep, we do not have the wide ass shoulders on our Autobahn network. We also know how to merge using the entire merging lane and the zipper effect. In the USA, it's cross the white line at lower speeds to create an accordion effect.
Lucifer! We can't even keep cars from blasting down the shoulder.
It’s not just that we don’t enforce any of this crap but we actually encourage it.
Near me there’s one highway where they open the shoulder as a lane during rush hour, intentionally and legally, as the cheap way to widen the road. No one seems to care that it makes accidents bigger, blocks emergency vehicles and people get used to it and do it everywhere
wow. just wow. which likely increases the need for emergency vehicles on the road as well.
So, that technique is actually an attempt to avoid a major problem in road development: you make a road, and now it's easier to travel so people use it and it's congested. So you make it bigger and traffic flows again, and so more people start using it and it gets congested. This keeps going until you have the freeways in Texas: 26 lanes of bad traffic.
Instead, one notion is to make the road wider only when it needs to be. It usually keeps traffic more mitigated for a few years before habits adjust.
The real fix is to start removing lanes from the highways. People will find other ways to get there and schedule travel as needed. Or they'll move out of the suburbs so they can get to work, or, the most ridiculous notion, they'll vote for the creation of the most basic of light rail systems.
Realistically they'll bulldoze another 50 mile stretch of urban housing so people can drive easier for the 4 busy hours a day for the next few years, until we eventually entirely demolish the cities to make way for the roads that bring people into them.
The thing is we do have better options, but they’d need to spend money
People might not like me pointing this out, and, admittedly I've never been to Germany, but doing such a thing does not matter in the US since there seems to be no real shoulder to this road. Anywhere in the US, whatever emergency vehicles that need to get to places don't require this at all - they will drive by on the shoulder of the road at break neck speeds even if no car has moved on that road in the last 10 minutes.
In the picture the right most cars have switched to the shoulder to make the Rettungsgasse big. I forgot the exact reasons but the shoulder is not used for emergency vehicles on purpose.
The shoulder has no shoulder. Probably not safe.
It's bcs it's intended for 'emergency stops' (including ppl going for a piss), 'emergency vehicles' (ambulances, etc) have a safer & more predictable way down the middle of the road away from the edges of the road.
There shouldn't be anyone in the middle of the road, but there could be someone on the emergency lane.
It’s not just the stopped cars that might be on the shoulder / emergency lane, but it’s also that there might be more loose stones there and in winter snow and ice. The middle of the road is then safer.
Do Germans regularly piss by the side of the road? In America it’s a great way of ending up on a sex offenders registry.
In Europe usually you get a fine at most. Imagine being on a road trip with a 3yo in the back, if they say they have to pee it's not like "I hope this queue moves in the next 30 minutes, it's RIGHT NOW! So off on the shoulder they go.
It's not (tho the smol children bit might be a rare occurrence) but ppl do leave their cars when stuck on the same spot for hours (which isn't that common altogether). There are other emergencies too (eg being sick).
I did piss on the road in a snow blizzard once, we were stuck on a very hilly motorway bcs a few buses & some trucks on shit (summer?) tyres went sideways blocking all lanes (others, trucks included, had no issues) but I didn't even step away from the car really bcs the visibly was so poor at some point that it was cool (in fact I was facing the incoming lanes opposite). We were there several hours tho.
In the same situation - after already not moving for at least half an hour a bus driver from a few cars behind me came so ask me (and I assume others?) to move my car just a bit forward so he could get to the freed lane (like op's pic). Once he explained the reasoning I replied with several swear words in his native language & the fucker absolutely knew what a shitty thing he was trying to do.
That kind of sex offender thing (exposing yourself) is treated differently here afaik - the laws aren't that different (eg when you can be naked in your home next to a window), but the application is (I don't imagine someone actually seeing your private bits if you aren't standing on the actual road & facing traffic). Also getting on a public sex offender list for urinating in public sounds like something cops disproportionately use to fuck the lives of innocents just for fun.
Oh I had to do that once in a traffic jam in Minneapolis 2021.
Unless they're my MIL, who was confused by the sight and, upon getting it explained to her, loudly exclaimed she'd never done that.
But I'm not sure if that was just an early spell of Dementia. I can't fathom that she's never seen it in fifty years of driving, or at least at some point in the last ten years.
What would they do if it was five lanes each direction?
Everyone goes to the right, except the left most lane. They go to the left. This is independent of the number of lanes.
It’s always a pleasure to drive on the German autobahn, unless I meet a fellow Dane on it 😂
But why do they need 2 lanes?
Do you see 2 white lines inside the empty space? No? Then it's not two lanes being kept free. Everyone is just at the very edge of their own lane. Sometimes lanes are just wide, it doesn't usually look like this.
Apologies, I'm stupid
Lol.
Sorry, it's just... Have any of you seen LA freeway lane widths?
This doesn't work everywhere. Love the idea, though!!
The system works for arbitrarily wide roads:
No, only up to 5 lanes, then you're out of fingers.
Over there they really do love to say 'that's brilliant but it's absolutely impossible that would ever work over here in basically the same or easier situation bcs over here is not over there'.
Okay but what if I have to take a major shit, is it cool if I skip ahead to the next exit? I get that the idea is everyone is making it safer on the off chance an emergency vehicle needs to go by, but we got this wide open strip, so if someone has a (minor) emergency, are they a jerk for taking advantage of it to get off the road, or...?
Great news, theres a ditch right beside where you stopped, and you said it was an emergency.
I watched a woman get out of her car during a traffic jam (on a packed freeway) drop trou and just piss in the road right in front of me. Didn't try to hide to one side or open the doors to block the sightline. Just busted piss in the absolute middle of the road.
Either she was mad out of fucks or she took a dare. Didnt even wipe. Just hiked her pants up and got back in the car.
🤷
Nyo its not cool and in highways accidents, the ambulances will usually be followed by police and you will get pulled over and fined.
No, you will be fined upwards of 240€, lose your license for a month, and get 2 points on your license (8 points means you lose it permanently, you will have to redo the license and take a so-called "idiot-test" beforehand).
This is how I've always seen things done in the US, tbh.
No you haven't. I've never seen this. I regularly see people who use the shoulders as passing lanes the moment traffic slows a little bit. Then completely block them. I see drivers trying to get in front or behind an emergency vehicle to take advantage of the rest of the drivers moving to the side with a complete disregard for how they're slowing everything down. I've seen drivers proudly park their car infront of an emergency vehicle and block them, then honk and flip the firetruck off for trying to pass them. I've seen drivers shoot at emergency responders because they were blocking the highway. I have never seen American drivers making an emergency lane.
While I've never seen this, it's worth noting that driving culture is pretty significantly different across the US even in the same state but different cities.
Merging in Philly? Bring your knife. Merging in Pittsburgh? They've already made room.
So it's possible that this person at least sees more pleasant driving behavior wherever they're at in the US.
I always regret accidentally posting on lemmy.world.
Using emergency lights and sirens is vastly unnecessary.
It is clearly much more dangerous to the ambulance crew & patient. Not to mention the other people that might be injured in an accident related to an emergency response.
How so?
Crash statistics clearly indicate the danger of emergency responses. It's simple common sense to understand how dangerous it is to navigate a road full of drivers that can be unpredictable.
Easy to research the info. Go look.
So you're pulling it out of your ass. Cool.
No, dumbass. Crash statistics are 2X for emergency vehicles running with lights and sirens.
You clearly don't have the brain capacity to grasp simple logic.
GFY.
Correlation != Causality. If an emergency vehicle needs to get somewhere fast, it will run sirens and lights to drive faster. Faster verhicles are obviously more likely to get into accidents. Still, this seems like a reasonable tradeoff to keep response times low overall. I severely doubt that sirens and lights by themselves cause any significant accidents.
Main point is that running with lights & sirens is more detrimental to the patient vs. flow of traffic transport.
Again, simple concept.
Just include a single link. It won't kill you