| While I was on vactation in Southern Germany I rented a car to cruise around on the autobahn. I wanted to see what it was like. Here are my impressions: It's not the sport car lovers dream like many people believe it is. Of all the highways that I was on, most were pretty small, being 2 lanes in each direction. I saw more Porsches, BMW's and Mercedes home in the US than I saw in Germany. With gas prices around $5 a gallon there, it's understandable that the vast majority of the cars were tiny econoboxes or small cars like VW Golfs, with the occasional Audi or Subaru. The traffic on average moves faster on the NJ turnpike than it did on any of the autobahns that I was on. The NJ turnpike is much wider and straighter than any road I saw there. Since most cars are small, they couldn't go that fast even if they wanted to. The roads go from no speed limit back to 80 or 120 km/hr when you get near a town or a bridge or tunnel. You can't go speeding through them. People were MUCH more aware and orderly than they are here. Nobody cruised in the fast lane unless they were passing everyone. Unlike here, they must enforce laws stating that you can't clog up the passing lane. I didn't see any idiots who thought it was their God-given right to hold up traffic behind them. People seemed to be driving when they were driving instead of talking on their cell phone or putting on their makeup like they do here. The roads were very smooth with no potholes at all. It looks like it would be very fun to drive on if you had a fast, powerful car like a Z, but like I said before with gas at $5 a gallon it would cost you nearly $100 to fill up your tank, and once you got into town you'd have a hard time finding a place to park it. I guess the main difference is that the people who do fly past you are doing so legally instead of being viewed as an out of control terrorist like people seem to think here. It also reinforces my belief that people are going to go a speed that feels right to them regardless of what the posted speed limit is. Overall, laws were relaxed in Europe. They showed nudity on public television, I saw people smoking pot in public, people were more orderly and it was much cleaner with less crime. Switzerland was especially nice. After spending time there it becomes obvious that many of the laws in the US seem to be out of touch with reality. For instance people there thought that the uproar about Janet Jackson at the superbowl was just ridiculous since you can see tits on public billboards and public television and the children there don't go into shock when they see it. Driving through the Swiss alps into Italy was much more impressive.
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