Observations Over Staus

I wrote this originally back in the summer of 2012, and reflected upon it....deciding to update it.
If you lived as an American around Chicago or Atlanta.....you have some basic introduction to traffic jams.  But in the case of German staus.....they tend to run in some varying ways.

So these are my twelve observations over German staus.

1.  Via your car radio....you can generally get updated information within each state over stau development, and to some degree via your GPS unit.  I would suggest you pay attention.  If it is a short and simple stau (say two kilometers or less).....I'd stick it out.  If this is a 10-kilometer stau, I'd probably pull off and do a hour-long rest stop or find an alternate route.

2.  Second, it's best to always have a bottle of water in the car because a stau might be exceptionally long and a sip once in a while might help to cool your nerves. Caffeine, I suspect....might be the wrong thing to drink.

3.  Based on all my stau experiences.....you can't really say they occur more often in urban areas or rural areas.

4.  The secondary route dilemma.  Several years ago, I found myself in a 20-kilometer long stau in the summer period.  After a while, I decided to exit and use a secondary road.  Well....so did a thousand other cars, and the route became a mess. Today, I'd take the suggestion of just taking a break (hour-long lunch) instead of the alternate route.

5.  Staus worse at 10 AM to 2 PM?  There's real proof to this idea which Germans often discuss.  I will admit that traffic flow at 4 AM to 8 AM.....on weekends....is a breeze and you rarely will ever find a stau.  The same is true after 9 PM at night.

6.  Staus caused by accidents.  There's two things which trigger staus: road construction projects and accidents.  If you use Goggle, you will notice that they tell you about the construction projects, and you might want to avoid this route in the summer months (worst period for staus).

7.  It's possible to run into a stau that involves an accident on the opposite side of the autobahn. Sadly, it's a German habit for folks to slow down on the good side.....checking out the accident on the bad side.....so you get into a four-km stau for no reason at all.

8.  Leaving the autobahn to stop and rest at the local rest stop while the stau is going on? Yes, I'd advise it. But you'd best plan on at least ninety minutes of rest.

9.  Staus trigger aggression and hostile feelings....if you are on a fairly long trip. If this is a ten-hour drive and you run through five staus through the day.....you will be very negative by the end of the trip. Take that into consideration and try to ease your mind at the end of the day.

10.  Right lane or left lane in a construction zone?  Well, here's the logic.  Traffic is usually bottled up on the right lane because buses and trucks 'hog' that lane....so it's slower.  The left lane?  In a construction zone....the left lane is typically 20-percent 'thinner' than the right lane.  If you hate the feeling of feeling very limited in a lane.....stick to the right.

11. The 'worst of the worst'.  About every couple of years, you will hear about some German stau where everything came to a dramatic halt....for hours.  This usually involves some ice-triggered accident or a fog-caused massive accident.  In the winter period, this is a minor problem because you need to keep the cabin of the vehicle warm, while waiting. 

12.  Finally, DO NOT pull out a camera or smart-phone to take pictures while you pass the accident scene.  Laws now exist that could trigger the cops to watch for this, and you'd have 'points' on this ticket issued.