Thanks. I did not read your main comment for being mainly road related. In non-road related areas I am pretty confident Germany has more safety measures than UK. The non-existing speed limit and the German love for car(lobbies) appear to be quite similar to the love of weapons in the US. I am not comparing weapons with cars here. Just their lobbies and public relationship with them.
I present this more as a interesting anecdote than a real argument but the fatality rate on the roads in Germany (where the autobhans have no enforced speed limit and seeing someone drive at 150mph is not uncommon) is considerably lower than in the US.
The reason this isn't a particularly great comparison is that driver training, car design and even the German attitude to driving are all built around the potential for high speeds.
Last time I checked, the US was quite far behind Germany in terms of road safety. Having driven in both (and far more dangerous ones), I'd say that there's a noticeable, but not outrageous difference. It largely depends on the state though.
I think the key difference is that Germany doesn't have an excessive or unusual number of traffic deaths[1]. I personally (as a German) do not support a speed limit and worry that there could be second order effects that they don't keep in mind. But I don't hold a strong opinion as I drive 3-5 times a year in Germany.
The flaw in logic here is to assume that Germany and the US are otherwise identical in policy. But of course that's not remotely true. Germany roads are safer because
- Drivers are required to obtain an extensive education at a licensed driving school and pass a rigorous test before being allowed to drive.
- Driving rules such as "no passing on the right" are strictly enforced in Germany, creating a more predictable (and thus safer) driving environment. There is absolutely no way something like the following could be achieved in the US due to Americans' stubbornness and lack of driving discipline:
- German roads are designed to naturally encourage people to make good decisions by the use of roundabouts, narrower lanes (which naturally make people slow down and be more careful) and many similar "vision zero" initiatives.
- German roads are consistently maintained.
- When you're not on the autobahn, speed limits are generally lower than in the US and are more strictly enforced.
Not to say that Germany is perfect, but they are doing much more than the US to ensure road safety and are doing so more consistently.
> As a fun aside, the fatality rate on the unrestricted German Autobahn is about half the fatality rate across all US highways
Germany has fanatically strict traffic enforcement, licensing rules, and vehicle inspections, compared to the US. You can't point to just the Autobahn without any further context.
The "well they drive fast in Germany every day" argument doesn't hold water either.
1) Even on the parts of the autobahn with unrestricted speeds, 130km is still the recommended upper limit, and you're more liable in a collision if you go faster than that.
2) Many people in Germany don't agree with unrestricted speeds, and politicians have compared it to gun law debates in the US.
3) Germany has higher than average deaths per 1000 km driven (for an EU country).
For a lot of reasons that is a significant difference (e.g., despite 70mph average, there are also many drivers going the speed limit and that is a speed differential of 10mph or 18mph, nearly twice as much) but I'm not sure it matters at all as far as Germany vs US automotive safety.
> The USA's per capita automobile death rate is over twice as high as Germany's, in spite of speed limits in general being lower in Germany and there being far more and more generous roads in the USA. [...] Statistically speaking though, you would think that more driving on wider, bigger roads and in less densely populated areas would lead to less accidents and not more.
The relationship between forgiving roads and safety does not necessarily run in the direction you assume. People generally drive at a speed that feels safe, so a road that feels safe will have faster speeds. Faster speeds don't necessarily lead to more crashes, but they definitely lead to a higher rate of serious injuries and fatalities.
Given a difference in fatality rate between two developed countries, I'd definitely look at factors like traffic engineering before jumping to the conclusion that, say, Americans are just worse drivers than Germans.
More likely it's the lower number of driving-hours per-person. The longer you drive, the greater the odds that something can go wrong. Germany, like most of Europe, has dense old urban cities and good transit infrastructure compared to American suburban sprawl. That means the average German doesn't spend as much time behind the wheel, if at all.
I wouldn't be surprised if Germany is substantially more dangerous per-driving-kilometer than the USA, but with far fewer driving-kms per person.
Also, remember that in many locations the "speed limit" isnt' really the defining thing that controls how drivers handle the road - many dense twisty urban environments are tight-enough to navigate that drivers instinctively take it slow and never even approach the speed limit. This tremendously reduces the odds of a fatality, although it does make minor scrapes pretty common.
My understanding is that German highways are similarly safer than American highways, so it's not just street design.
I agree that cultural attitudes play a large part; a somewhat easy way to change America's culture of unsafety is to gate the privilege of driving to those who are willing to change it. It's what we did for seatbelts, airbags, and just about everything else that's saved countless drivers' (and passengers') lives over the last few decades.
I always feel more controlled in Britain than Germany or Switzerland, with the amount of "You should do this, You should not do that" messages all over the place, and thanks to CCTV, in the places I regularly visit I seldom see any car badly parked.
Oh I do. Having driven in Germany for 6 months (and on periodic business trips) and the US for 30+ years, Germany is a dream from risk of accident, serious accident, and fatality risk compared to the US.
It's a lot harder to get a license in Germany than in the US, and there's more of an expectation that you keep your vehicle in good repair. I could argue that the speed limit on the Autobahn is a result of selecting for more conscientious and capable drivers rather than proof that higher speeds are safe in general.
Y'all also have two different problems, compared to Europe.
The first one is the utter shit that's allowed to legally drive on US roads. Self-built contraptions galore, not to mention many US states seem to not require a regular technical inspection beyond making sure the exhaust system passes limits. Meanwhile here, you have to have your car checked over every two to five years to make sure it's road worthy. If you ignore that long enough, you can actually get hit with a criminal charge.
The second one is driver's education. Like, we have dozens of hours theoretical and practical education by accredited institutions ans educators, and exams for both. No such things as self-learned or learned by parents.
Germany's roads are very safe, and that despite not much police being on the road - it's rare to get pulled over.
reply