When traffic comes to a standstill, German drivers instantly shift left and right to create a Rettungsgasse, an emergency corridor so ambulances and firefighters can fly through at full speed

Interesting. I was going to reply that I have been in plenty of traffic jams on the Autobahn that did not have such a lane, but that was indeed more than 10 years ago!

That push in Germany quickly got wider EU traction & it's finally starting (5~10 years ago?) to be the norm in the main countries too (not just for when the traffic stops completely but even in cases of slow moving traffic like below 60 or maybe 80km/h).

Thx!

damn that is a long article

Go drive in an Asian country and come back. The difference is incredible

Yeah, in the US there's zero chance that opening isn't filled by drivers who think they're more important than everyone else.

Honestly I blame speed limits. On the autobahn you know “if you’re slower, move over”. In the US, inevitably there is someone camping the left lane saying “I’m doing the limit so i have every right to use this as the long distance lane”

Drive rush hour here daily, you'll notice we have a fair share of our own inconsiderate idiots here.

Oh and literal reckless murderers.

I had a very similar feeling moving back from driving in The Netherlands to driving in Portugal.

(Mind you, in Portugal cars do reliably pull over to let emergency vehicles through)

In Germany, we have laws for that.

We literally have this. We call it the "shoulder".

Even drivers in the US are good about it 99.9% of the time if there is anywhere to go, they do get out of the way and stay out of the way. There are heavy fines. And if the Amp-a-Lamps driver can get your plate number, the cops WILL go look for you.

Source: I spent nearly 20 years in Amber-Lamps and fire trucks.

Probably still massively speeds up response times though. I imagine it wouldn't be that hard to squeeze 2 cars in that given space allowing the emergency vehicle to get past the person not following the rules.

Prisoners dilemma always wins.

This would require people capable of thinking and having empathy for others

Here in America you'd get people peeling through the middle

In the US? You mean other than keeping the shittiest health care system in the world just to be sure no money would go to someone who can't pay?

Around here, emergency vehicles just drive in the shoulder when this happens.

Our culture is narcissism

I know atleast one country where half the people there would try to use that corridor. So yea it requires some couple levels in civilization.

Excuse me, your honor, full of youths.

I must be broken as often I'll let a bus out expressly thinking that a vehicle with 20 people in has to be more important than me.

I'm not in the US thou

Driving through the rettungsgasse is punished very heavily though

Americans literally do the same thing...

Same! Are you in Korea?

i see that regularly, when an ambulance carves out a lane there's always one or two impatient mfs following it

Which gets fucking expensive quick, because it's illegal and the probability is high that police and / or ambulance already are at the end of your race track

thats seemingly what we do in britain!

"High-ho, Silver! AWAAaYyYy!"

Might be legal if you're on a motorcycle. If it isn't, it should be. No reason to not allow lane filtering.

That is the law in the US as well. TWICE I've seen someone ignore it and both times other citizens (in cars as well as pedestrians) bully the driver into following it.

Driver: I didn't have anywhere to go!

Bike messenger: Turn into the fuckin alley or I'm breaking all your lights

And most time not until the blue lights are right up someone's ass

how do you think it would work if they only did it when there was an ambulance?

Yes, we are taught to move left or right to create a middle lane during a traffic jam.

Yes

Doing something for the good of people I don't even know? Sounds dangerously close to socialism! /s

Do emergency vehicles have right of way in the US? Ive seen so many videos of people blocking fire trucks and ambulances. A guy i knew got a hefty fine here in Norway for driving behind an ambulance. We don’t do like the germans, but we immediately make way for all blue lights

Enforced is the big thing. I don't know why police departments keep getting more money, thr money is right there on the highway waiting for them to get it. Every time drive I see people crossing the double white, abusing the big lane, speeding, swerving, even road raging. We have enough police in my city that there could be a cop in each directly every half mile of all of our interstates and they would make a huge profit. Just enforce the freaking laws we already have. Guaranteed they'll make that budget shortfall.

And we haven't even gotten into the whole "Drib up to ten over because no one cares"

Yeah you would need like 99.9% of the drivers in the US to agree to this. I don't think you could even get 70% of the selfish fucks on our roads to do this. Guaranteed 3 out of 10 cars would wonder why everyone else is a bunch of losers and head straight down the middle, which would never actually exist in the first place because 7 out of 10 cars being considerate is nowhere near enough...

There are easier ways to say you drive a Mercedes.

What would you prefer? An uninterrupted lane or one where you have to get past broken down cars/merging traffic, ...

In a situation where every second can count, it's easy to see why Germany (among other countries) does this.

The shoulders in Germany and to my understanding most of Europe are used to give broken down vehicles space to change a tire or wait for service in safety, or to allow construction site to move the lanes to the sides without merging. Traffic jams are often a result of to much traffic, construction or accidents and often enough cause cars to break down. Hence the shoulders are often blocked in situations, where the emergency vehicles are needed. Also, there are many, of not most, streets without shoulders. The Autobahn/ National routes being the exception.

Also the shoulders in Germany, the US and UK are in my experience rather bumpy. So driving in them at full speed can be a bit risky.

I thing the argument for this method is that it is universal: traffic is not moving? Move over and make space and allow emergency vehicles to pass through at full speed.

We dont have shoulders here, on account of all the road construction.

Long roadworks remain a problem too.

It’s not just that we don’t enforce any of this crap but we actually encourage it.

Near me there’s one highway where they open the shoulder as a lane during rush hour, intentionally and legally, as the cheap way to widen the road. No one seems to care that it makes accidents bigger, blocks emergency vehicles and people get used to it and do it everywhere

In the picture the right most cars have switched to the shoulder to make the Rettungsgasse big. I forgot the exact reasons but the shoulder is not used for emergency vehicles on purpose.

Everyone goes to the right, except the left most lane. They go to the left. This is independent of the number of lanes.

Do you see 2 white lines inside the empty space? No? Then it's not two lanes being kept free. Everyone is just at the very edge of their own lane. Sometimes lanes are just wide, it doesn't usually look like this.

The system works for arbitrarily wide roads:

but what if I have to take a major shit

Great news, theres a ditch right beside where you stopped, and you said it was an emergency.

Nyo its not cool and in highways accidents, the ambulances will usually be followed by police and you will get pulled over and fined.

is it cool if I skip ahead to the next exit?

No, you will be fined upwards of 240€, lose your license for a month, and get 2 points on your license (8 points means you lose it permanently, you will have to redo the license and take a so-called "idiot-test" beforehand).

No you haven't. I've never seen this. I regularly see people who use the shoulders as passing lanes the moment traffic slows a little bit. Then completely block them. I see drivers trying to get in front or behind an emergency vehicle to take advantage of the rest of the drivers moving to the side with a complete disregard for how they're slowing everything down. I've seen drivers proudly park their car infront of an emergency vehicle and block them, then honk and flip the firetruck off for trying to pass them. I've seen drivers shoot at emergency responders because they were blocking the highway. I have never seen American drivers making an emergency lane.

I always regret accidentally posting on lemmy.world.

It is clearly much more dangerous to the ambulance crew & patient

How so?