e all get road rage. Even if you admit you don’t, we’ve all been there. Those days when you’re late for work are the days it seems everyone forgets how to drive, or the days where everyone wants to cut you off. That anger leads to frustration, and that frustration more often than not leads to verbal disputes between you and someone in another car (who likely can’t even hear you). You flip them the bird as you drive past them and move on with life, right? No harm done here. Well, think again. Things are a little different in Germany, in fact, this form of road rage is considered illegal. A young BMW driver learned this the hard way when deciding to toss a middle finger at a German speed camera. The outcome wasn’t pretty...
Fine upped by 75x
We weren’t kidding when we said the outcome wasn’t pretty. And no, the fine wasn’t upped by €75, It was upped by 75 times. The 26 year-old driver of the BMW X5 was caught by the speed camera doing 11 km/h above the 70 km/h limit in a section of the Autobahn. Nothing out of the ordinary, right? We all speed a little here and there. Normally, a move like this would have been an easy €20 fine. Flipping the bird turned things into a steep €1,500 Euro fine. Oh, and the cherry on top? The Kulmbach district court threw in a one-month suspension of his license.
What is the Autobahn?
In a nutshell, the autobahn is a highway system in Germany where you can essentially speed without risking a fine. Just don’t put up any middle fingers. The purpose of the road network was designed with wider lanes and curves so drivers could travel faster and safer. Germany's autobahn network has a total length of about 13,000 and is widely known for having no federally mandated speed limit. Advisory speed limits of 130 km/hr are recommended on speed-unrestricted stretches.
So yes, the highway may be glorious to go for a rip on, but remember to keep all hands inside the vehicle, and most importantly on the steering wheel to avoid any fuss with the German fuzz.
