Autobahn Impressions - Stau

Magda shares a small apartment in Badenweiler, a spa town south of Freiburg situated in the the southern part of the Black Forest. It is a wonderful place for hiking either through the vineyards and fields of Markgräflerland or in the mountains of the Black Forest to the east. Belchen, the thrid highest mountain in Germany, is a short but winding drive away.

Not surprisingly, Magda and I decided to spend a few days of her fall vacation in Badenweiler. The trip is typically a 3.5 hour drive. Being late on a Saturday, the drive was progressing nicely. The number of LKW (large trucks) on the road was reduced. There are times that there are so many LKWs on the road that you think the Autobahn is one lane in each direction. But on Saturday and Sunday, the numbers are much smaller.

However, this was offset by the number of construction projects along the way. Fortunately, they did not require reducing the number of lanes. The Autobahn seems designed to use the side lane as an extra lane when construction is needed. Plus construction projects do not seem to require the heavy concrete protection that is used in the US. Some pylons to route the traffic to one of the lanes and the side lane, narrowing the lanes, requiring all LKWs in one of the lanes and slowing the traffic down through the project seems to be enough.

Then 35 km before our exit, we came to a complete stop. We have come upon the scourge of Autobahn, traffic jam. Or as the Germans call it a Stau. The fact that this is a four letter word will have more meaning to an English speaker than a German one. But in either case, it is not something you want to experience.

We inched forward as the traffic allowed, then waited for our next opportunity. Reaction of some other drivers we interesting as we watched people go into one of the two rest stops that we passed and out again without stopping, just to merge back into the traffic 4 or 5 spots ahead of where they were. Others started to drive the side lane, only to be blocked by an LKW that purposely straddled the right and side lane to stop such activity.

10 km and over an hour later, we discovered that the reason for the Stau was not an accident, but rather another construction project. This one, however, did require a reduction of lanes and the resulting merge had caused the back-up. If you figure that each car had used a gallon of gas for those 10 km at about $8 per gallon (yep that's what it costs here), you certainly hope that was an important project.