Just Some Signs

Germany is this unique place where signs really matter.  So when you travel on the autobahn or the back-roads of Germany....you have to pay attention.  Germans spend a lot of time thinking about signs and how they relate to life and safety.  Signs are geared to save you time or effort.

When I arrived in Germany in 1978, I spent almost an entire weekend memorizing the stupid driver's license manual and there were well over 120 signs that you had to grasp and you had to pass two separate tests for your license.  One was the sign test and you had barely thirty minutes to get forty out of fifty signs correct.  That barely gives you 30 seconds on each to recognize and ID it.

This sign for example.....is supposed to tell you that the primary road curves, and the other two roads have come to an end and must stop.  So you just keep driving on the curved road.  This didn't make alot of sense to me but eventually....after a year of driving around....I realized it made perfect sense.

The problem with this sign is that if you come out of the other two roads....you have to come to a complete stop.  No yield or a 'California-stop'.

Then I came to this 'no entry sign'.  I came to discover that Germany has alot of roads that are one-way.  Almost every village has at least one no-entry, and most have a dozen....just for a small village.

It's important to remember this sign, because if you were to screw up on this identification.....there'd be a hefty traffic ticket involved.

I worked with a guy who violated the sign in his neighborhood because there was a shortcut that he'd learned about.  It was a 300 foot piece of road that he needed to cover and it'd cut two minutes out of his trip.  The sad thing is that he used this violation for a year...until the German cops came up one day and were standing there....and handed a ticket involving a fair amount of money.

The einbahnstrasse sign is simply a one-way sign.  Again, we go back to this issue that you find in villages and towns....one-way streets.  Once you come up against this sign...it's best to follow the arrow and get to an exit point.

Finally, I come to a new sign which has only appeared in the past five years....its the umwelt sign.

If you live in a major town like Berlin, Hamburg, or even Wiesbaden, then it's likely to have a major part of that town which is forbidden for older model cars.  How do you know your situation and your car?

Well...there's these decals which you are supposed to have on the windshield which would note a green, yellow or red zone.  Your local mechanic can establish the year model of your car and check it out.

This umwelt deal is supposed to clean up the fumes around these major cities and project a very 'green' environment.