Germany has a ratio of 3.9 deaths per 100,000 people, while America's ratio is 12.4 per 100,000—essentially 4x higher. And they have the autobahn. Not like they are driving slower.
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They drive with a discipline / care that Americans refuse to even consider. Perhaps Americans should.
As someone who regularly drives on German highways, including the Autobahn, I may ad my two cents. While German drivers are often praised for their discipline, the reality I've observed, especially in unlimited speed sections of the Autobahn, can be quite different.
Many drivers there seem to focus primarily on their perceived right to drive as fast as they want, often creating dangerous situations for others who may be able to or want to drive as fast and thus often not have time to react. I've witnessed numerous close calls and risky maneuvers that don't align with the idealized view of German driving discipline.
That said, the significant difference in road fatality rates between Germany and the US suggests there are indeed factors contributing to safer roads in Germany. However, from my experience, it's not simply due to more careful drivers across the board. Other elements like road design, vehicle safety standards, strict enforcement of traffic laws, and comprehensive driver education systems likely play crucial roles, see the pathway to a german drivers license which includes about 9 hours of practice training with a driving instructor.
Rather than looking abroad for examples of driver behavior, it might be more productive for the US to focus on improving road safety through comprehensive measures. This could include enhancing driver education, implementing stricter enforcement of existing traffic laws, and investing in safer road infrastructure.
The goal should be to create a system that encourages and facilitates safer driving for everyone, regardless of individual driver attitudes. While there's certainly room for improvement in American driving habits, the solution likely lies in systemic changes rather than simply emulating perceived behaviors from other countries.
> the reality I've observed, especially in unlimited speed sections of the Autobahn, can be quite different.
My experience is that it depends on where in Germany you are. I drove from France to Norway this week so I went through northern Germany and the autobahn was great, where it wasn't restricted because of the more or less permanent roadworks that is. I drive on Tesla Autopilot when I can which has a maximum speed of 150 kph and only once in the 600 km from Venlo to Flensburg did I notice someone get too close behind me even though many were travelling considerably faster.
It's a different story further south around Munich for instance.
I agree though that road safety in Europe has a lot to do with road design, vehicle standards, maintenance, driver education, etc.
I fully agree on that, I'm mostly travelling through the south of germany, think Salzburg to Kufstein, and that route is terrible, including the pavement.
> However, from my experience, it's not simply due to more careful drivers across the board. Other elements like road design, vehicle safety standards, strict enforcement of traffic laws, and comprehensive driver education systems likely play crucial roles
I would think elements like strict enforcement of traffic laws and comprehensive driver education systems likely play crucial roles by... leading to more careful drivers across the board.
If you drove 150 MPH on an American road you would end up 100 yards into the woods flipping over 90 times, after hitting 1 of 65 potholes that are 4 feet deep on the interstate.
That would be a poor excuse for just a few cars driving scattered across 6 lanes to make sure to block the whole thing. It's not always about driving much faster.
> comprehensive driver education systems
What are they learning, other than (at least partly) discipline and ways to be safer?
Americans wouldn't even understand the meaning of "discipline". "Lane discipline" for example - paying attention to what lane you are in and for what reason. Minimizing your use of left-more lanes for whoever might want to drive past you; paying attention to who has the right of way in the right-most lane, while not blocking people from entering or exiting.
But for a specific example, many Americans are let loose with a driver's license but scared of entering or exiting a freeway. When it's just about impossible to drive in the US without using freeways. (They are scared for good reason considering their lack of practice and understanding of how that works.)
Germany is barely the size of New Mexico. Talk about an apples to orange comparison…
Broken down by state, I’m sure there are states that are safer than Germany.
Classic American answer to everything. What does size have to do with anything? Besides well understood economies of scale which clearly would favor the US?
Because when you live in a country as large as the United States, you are on the road a lot more so your chances of dying on the road go up. The quoted statistic is not per unit of distance it’s just per 100,000 people so it’s biased towards places that are smaller.
> Broken down by state, I’m sure there are states that are safer than Germany
Based on fatalities per 100k persons (not a great statistic but the one quoted in this thread), and 2022 data, then nope. Every single state is worse than Germany.
Even District of Columbia - basically a city with much less reason to drive - manages a worse score than Germany as a whole.
https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/state...
Pretty ridiculous to not measure deaths per some unit of distance traveled.
Eh, you really want per unit of economic productivity or similar, since driving is not in and of itself productive. For instance, you could get the numbers to look better simply by having people circle the block in their neighborhood (presumably a very safe form of driving).
I agree they have a considerate and disciplined driving culture, but on the other hand parts of the autobahn are without any speed limitations which increase accidents ("Freie Fahrt für freie Bürger").
It’s funny, because my very anecdotal experience is very different.
I’ve been to the US and Germany only once. In Berlin I didn’t drive, but saw the weirdest thing multiple times: when the traffic lights turned green sometimes the drivers of the cars up front would just go flat out, tyre screching and all, only to stop at the next traffic light 100 meters away. Really odd.
On the other hand I had to drive many kilometers (sorry, miles) in the US and thought everyone was well behaved, didn’t experience any tailgating, reckless driving etc.
US varies widely. California drivers are pretty wild. A 65 mph highway will have half the cars going 80, many tailgating. Many don’t let you merge if you use blinker. Michigan can be similarly fast, but less aggressive. PNW is much more reasonable/safe.
Americans drive more, so if you want to compare the safety of the two systems it is better to look at deaths per vehicle-km. Germany has 4.2 deaths per billion vehicle-km. The United States has 6.9.
But driving is inherently dangerous, that's the whole point. America shouldn't be let off the hook for partaking in more of a dangerous activity, as if that makes it less dangerous. If Americans don't want to die in cars they should drive less. (Trains would help.)
I think that's likely a function of miles driven. At least partially.
Per capita passenger mileage is 2x lower in Germany vs US[1]; it looks like this accounts for just ~half of the difference - and there are other factors responsible for increased mortality.
[1]: https://frontiergroup.org/resources/fact-file-americans-driv...
Other factors indeed, like population density - I assume you won't like correcting for that.
On the contrary, please show how you would correct for that, ideally with sources.
Why would you assume that?
Only ~1.8x as a function of kms driven. Still significantly better.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...
That's part of the problem.