This is short essay to talk over current chatter in Germany of bringing autobahn speeds to a national standard. The push right now.....politically, there is this trend to bring the speed down to 130 kph (roughly 62 mph). The Greens and some members of the SPD Party believe that the point has arrived where a limit needs to exist. The CDU-CSU folks....haven't really jumped into this discussion, and the talk is marginally progressing.
For the most part, if you travel around Germany on autobahns.....roughly 70-percent is unlimited, and rest....either due to heavy traffic congestion, extreme changes in landscape, or construction.....has a limit (typically 100 to 130 kph). If this is a rebuilding effort....the speed can drift down to 50 kph. If you bring this up with most Germans, you get one of four answers.
The first is that they admit that they never drive more than 100 to 130 kph. The second is that safety concerns should over-ride all feelings, and that 100 to 130 kph ought to be the norm. The third is that it's a fairly wide-open space in more than half the country, and people will admit to driving 150 to 180 kph in those open spaces. Then finally, you come to the environmentalist answer.....everyone should be driving at a lesser speed....to conserve fuel.
That fourth answer, because of the arrival of battery-cars....is losing impact, and might not really matter in ten to twenty years.
So, around 90 years ago....deep into the Weimar Republic days (before the Nazis), an effort was made to made a massive motorway (autobahn) between Bonn and Koln. It's 34 kilometers, and it was finally completed in 1932 (ceremony was handled by Mayor of Koln....Adenauer (yes, the guy who would eventually be Chancellor). Speed limits for this brief stretch of road were put into effect by state.
It took roughly a year for the national Nazi Party instrument to figure out the value, and this national plan with over 6,000 kilometers of autobahn was laid out on paper. This would somehow be built and finished by the end of 1938.
Speed limit ideas for this massive Nazi project? None.
Yes, this is the amusing part of the story. The Nazis nationalized the whole speed limit apparatus that existed state-by-state across Germany (the Highway Code of 1934). Yes, they deregulated the speed limit. No one talks about this today, but it was one of those few positive things that came out of this era. It didn't even matter if you were on the autobahn in the midst of Munich.....the speed was still unlimited.
Now, you'd sit and naturally ask the logic here, and what was generally said (in public chatter by the leadership)....was that a good German (a good socialist) would never misuse his freedom of speed. I know....it's pretty comical, but it did make good speech chatter.
The unlimited period existing up to 1939? Differing discussions are laid out by historians, with some suggesting that as many as 8,000 Germans died. However, the statistical data doesn't really say if this was autobahn roads, secondary roads, or dirt roads.
In the midst of this period, with deaths and injuries mounting....someone finally told Hitler, and he went ballistic. All those dead and injured men....could have been serving their country and fighting in the Bundeswehr.
Rather than bring in a speed limit.....at the very end of 1937....he ordered the Highway Code to be shaped for prosecutors to charge drivers for reckless driving behavior. So if you got into a serious accident, and got fairly injured.....somewhere at the hospital or upon the arrival of the ambulance....some cop would be writing you a summons to appear at a court for serious driving issues.
Around a year later (going to spring of 1939), the Code finally changed to allow speed limits (60 kph, or roughly 37 mph) in urbanized areas. The normal rural sections of the autobahn went to a max of 90 kph.
This speed limit lasted about a year, and with the Army now in invasion status....gas became a serious issue. Conservation chatter led to a max of 80 kph, for the duration of the war. I've never seen any data for car accidents in that period, but I would assume that injury and death rates decreased to some degree.
So then you might wonder....what happened after 1945, when the British, French and Americans were running West Germany? Curiously, each zone or sector (run by the Brits, French or Americans).....had their own speed limit rules. There was no national limit until you get to the 1950s. At that point, the unlimited speed solution went back into effect, with urbanized areas seeing some regulated speeds.
The odds now that the 130 kph will be delivered? I think it's entirely possible that the Greens and SPD Party will find some method of data collection (showing accidents in certain areas) to bring autobahn speeds for about half of the nation down to 100 kph to 130 kph. Part of this might revolve around winter periods, or night-time speeds. The highly rural autobahn areas? They might be able to retain the speeds of unlimited.
These polls cited by German public TV of 'most' Germans favoring a limit? I tend to question the method of statistical collection, and who exactly they polled. Most working-class Germans might agree to a night-time limit of 130 kph, but the vast majority (I think) would prefer unlimited speeds to be kept on the books.
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