reginos:
Better safe than sorry, then
Exactly. Sometimes I drive behind an idiot at 160 kph for a couple of km, the right lane completely free and another driver who gets angry behind me, actually overtakes us on the right lane. This drives me mad because if that guy in front of me decides to move to the right...well... I would probably not get away either in such an accident but I usually try to keep enough distance to react in time (and to avoid the video surveillance distance measurements hidden next to Autobahn bridges (no kidding).
We have no speed limit on many parts of the Autobahn but we have video surveillance, not only mobile but also stationary and if they do not measure the speed when there is no speed limit, they measure safety distances between cars or they video tape you while you are passing on the right illegally.
A friend of mine even claims that once, he had a car driving on the left lane at around 140 kph, not moving to the right for a couple of km. He then got closer and closer to that car, flashing his lights and even honking. At some point, a red "POLIZEI...bitte folgen" (police...please follow) display came on in the rear window and he lost his driver's license. He was in court for that and the judge claimed that the recommended speed is 130 kph (which is true, we have no speed limit but a recommended speed of 130 kph), the police car was driving 140 kph and there were trucks every now and then (every 300 to 400 meters or so) and the police car therefore was still in an overtaking process and didn't have to move to the right. Can you believe that? The police actually wanted to get him for endangerment of traffic too (because he was too close to the rear of the car at 140 kph) but he was "lucky", he lost his driver's license "only" for a month but had to pay over 400 EUR or so, not to mention the lawyer cost.
I believe my friend, he is actually a pretty reasonable driver from what I can tell. Also, I had a similar encounter with a police video surveillance car in the city. He (the police officer was alone in the car) claimed that I was racing my car in the city (which was completely untrue) and that he followed me (in the city, for over 20 minutes!!!) and finally stopped me. I was aware that somebody is following me (didn't know it was the police, it was an old VW Passat stationwagon with one person only) and at some point, I tried to loose him because I didn't understand why he is following me (from my past diplomatic work, I had kind of a paranoia looking for cars in the rear view mirror, we were trained for that). Then, I really lost him (took a curve very fast and then entered a parking lot) and he drove by very fast. When I wanted to exit the parking lot, he drove in with a blue light on his roof and almost hit two guys who came out of a restaurant. This was actually my "luck" because I took the number of these two guys and later on, they confirmed my story at court. The police officer was way out of line, he insulted me (no witnesses though), he forbid me to take my jacket out of the car (it was very cold) and he basically jumped me and funniest thing was actually that he claimed I had driven to fast in the street leading to the parking lot, a street with a 30 kph speed limit (which wasn't true, the speed limit was 50 ). Overall, he stood no chance in court but now it comes, I had to pay a 60 EUR fine (no points though) because the video surveillance in the car clearly showed that I was driving too fast at some point...when I tried to evade him. The judge let me go but asked the police officer to stay. My lawyer told me later on that the judge had given some sort of official warning to the police officer because of the whole thing, which actually proves that the judge believed me but typical German, he had to fine me. Since then, I am very very careful with the law over here, they can basically do anything to you if they find a reason.
I have no points on my driver's license, no accidents over the past 28 years or so (first one at 18, second one at 19, never again) and I'm not a slow driver if you understand what I mean. So I guess I'm doing something right.
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RC (Germany) - Rennteam Editor Porsche 991 Turbo S, Cayenne GTS (958), BMW X3 35d (2013)