Hi! I’m on a trip and there is some slow traffic. Is there any reason for cars to leave free space in the center like this?

18 comments

  5. Yes: it’s the law. It’s called the “rescue lane”, because it is to be used by emergency vehicles (and *only* emergency vehicles).

    The rule is that vehicles in the left lane must move to the left, and all other vehicles must move to the right.

    You might ask: But what about the hard shoulder on the right? Isn’t that for emergency vehicles? And the answer is: no, it is for vehicles that have broken down. An ambulance can’t use the hard shoulder if there’s a broken-down car on it.

  8. This first time I seen this it blew my mind, in Melbourne aus people can barely drive between the lines, let alone do this.

  9. Wow, that’s one of those rare moments to be proud of a German thing! Sure it musst be connected to the Autobahn.. ain’t that a common thing in other countries?
    But it took us decades to perform it like this and in many cases people can’t handle to do it so well.

  11. Interesting, in Sweden we only do this if an emergency vehicle is actually coming, but that’s obviously a slower process which entails the risk of someone not moving to the side on time, which would be problematic.

    If people always do this then I’d guess emergency vehicles could get to where they’re going slightly faster.

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