American Reacts to THINGS GERMANS DO THAT MAKE MORE SENSE

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[seegis]

I just want to add that its not only Germany, in entire Europe union rules and signs are basically the same, so this aplies almost to all counties in EU on every thing she said.

[jolanvreys]

I'm from Belgium, and most people here only have one or two cars per household. When I heard you saying that you had 8 cars, I was like "what do you need that many cars for?"

[thestonegateroadrunner]

German traffic signs (like all over Europe and predominant worldwide) follow the Vienna UN Convention on Road Signs and Signals of 1968. All the signs have pictogramms rather than text, thus are easy to understand independent from languages.

[dabj]

A German family has a Kombi. Maybe two.
That Kombi:
-commutes
-goes fast
-goes on vacations
-gets groceries
-gets building supplies
-gets furniture
-has big trunk
-has roof rails
-has towing hitch
-much more...

[hera]

After I finished school I worked at a german gas station for a few months. ONE guy once forgot to pay and drove off. He came back about an hour later and apologized for being preoccupied before. Then he bought a chocolate bar and gave it to me as a present for the extra work I had. 🙂

[SanderEvers]

cars towing mobile homes / caravans is actually really common in Europe in general. (and has been for decades) My family did that every summer for years, and we went to the south of France, north Spain or Italy each year (from the Netherlands). Always a long drive and the we stopped at camping for a few weeks (near the sea). It's what we did, and with us millions others, for our summer vacation.

[luwuluri]

one thing that she didn't mention about Pfand (the bottles with deposit) that i'd like to add: it's not just practical for yourself but essential to homeless people as well.
if you're going out, carry something to drink with you, but then dont feel like taking an empty bottle home with you, then it's common courtesy to place it underneath or beside a trashcan. so when a homeless person comes by, they dont have to rummage through trash to look for Pfand, which they normally do. they rely heavily on collecting these bottles and i cant imagine how tough it would be without Pfand even existing.

[kev]

The towing difference really surprises me as a European because most people tow stuff like trailers and caravans with regular family cars rather than SUVs and pickups. There's even a case in The Netherlands of someone towing with a regular sized caravan with a Smart car, which is an extreme but it's been done.

[ondrejvasak]

The triangle and vest is a legal requirement in most of EU member countries (I believe this includes Germany). In the Czech Republic, if the police stops you they might randomly ask you to show them your the safety kit (Triangle, vest, Medkit), if you don't have it or it's expired (the Medkit) you can get a pretty large fine.

[torstensteinert]

In Germany it is required by law to have a first aid kit, a reflector triangle as well as a vest for each person in the car. In a traffic control stop you have to show that to the police.
Also many young folk esp. in big cities dont have any car at all. Most households have 2 cars max

[cccwue]

In Germany you have to have the triangle on board, otherwise you get a ticket. Same with the warning vest, where you should have one vest for each passenger.
And bare in mind, if you think you drive really fast on the Autobahn (AB), like 250km/h (155mp/h), there is always someone faster than you. Always check you're mirrors.
Even a VW Polo (smaller than a Golf) can tow trailers (w/ brakes) up to 1200kg. Most sedans, station wagons or SUV could tow 1400 to 2200kg.
Most households have two cars, even there is only one earner. Mostly one sedan or station wagon and one small car, like a VW Polo or someting other with this size.
Speeds are in town/city 50km/h, in special signed residential or shool areas it's 30km/h. On countra roads mostly 100km/h or 70-80km/h at intersections.
Only exceptions from the 50 or 100km/h are posted with signs. Especially on the AB, if you see no posted speed limit past the on-ramp, there is always no speed limit.
The driving license is about 2500€, if you take only the necessary hours and pass on the first try. If you need more hours and the driving school has high prices (like in big citys), then it can easyly climb to 3500€ and more. Also, in the first 2 years (trial period), you're not allowed to drive drunk or get a ticket for speeding or other things over 70€. Then you have to go to a driving school for a retraining (Aufbauseminar) for 200-500€ and your trial period get extended to 4 years. If you have 2 serious violations, like speeding over 21km/h, taking right of way, insufficient safety distance and so on, you have to go to a traffic psychological counseling (MPU). There they look and decide, if you are mentaly and physicaly fit to drive (another 500€). With 3 serious violations your driving license is gone. After 6 months, you're allowed to attend to driving school from the beginnig. But the control density of traffic is much lower, than in the US.
Deposit for one-way beverage packaging, like plastic bottles and cans is 25ct. Since introduction in 2005, you see these almost nowere in the environment.
At gas stations you are mostly pump first and pay after. Some are not with a shop and you can only pay by card (bank card/credit card),
there they block maybe 100€ on your card and you pump what you need and they charge only what you've taken.
Single use plastic bags now only allowed for vegetables and fruits in shops or at makets (Wochenmarkt).

[Strongest_under_heaven]

Just to clarify on the no sign speed limits, In EU it generally works like this -
City road - you enter a city, the speed limit is 50, you have a sign that you have entered city so you do not need another sign to declare speed limit
Country road - any road after the crossed out city name, a.k.a. Outside of city, the speed limit is 90
Highway - you always have a sign notifying you that you are entering a highway, on highway speed limits differ per country, but most often its 130 km/h
These are the 3 main types of roads, and they have hard set limits in the law, so you dont need speed signs.
Of course, we still have speed signs, but these almost exclusively declare a change in speed limit (for instance a dangerous section of a highway may have speed limit reduced to 110)
These limits apply until there is another sign specifically cancelling this restriction, or an intersection.
Any Intersection automatically cancels any speed limit set by a traffic sign, so if you pass an intersection and the limit is intended to be reduced still, immediately after the intersection there will be a sign re-instating the reduced speed limit.
It’s simple really, I had no idea you had different standards in america to be honest.

[Tscheche]

What she means is that there are default tempo limits. So for example when you drive into a city there is a tempo limit of 50km/h if not stated otherwise. There are exceptions (like speedways in major cities). But in general there are rules for default speed limits. So you can drive into a small city and leave it without seeing any speed limit sign as you know that the speed limit is 50. In us, from what I understood, there would be a speed limit sign

[aldI]

the tow hitch on "regular" cars isnt just useful for towing - you can also use it to hitch a bike rack to your car ect. its super useful and really opens up a world of possibilities

[dondezeeuw]

I am from the Netherlands. To have a American v8 pickup truck it's simple to expensive to drive for a normal family. Except when you have your one construction company then you get discount for road tax than you run the truck on LPG its more or less double. We have high monthly road tax what goes for weight, gasoline cost 2euro a 1liter. That's why we like small economic cars

[rdevries]

I think a big part of the point about not really needing the speed limit signs also comes down to German (and even more so, Dutch) roads being _designed_ to reflect the speed you should be driving at. North American roads, on the other hand, barely have any relation between the design of the road and the intended speed limit; roads that look and feel very similar may have _very_ different speed limits.

[UltrasRapid]

About the gas station theory of running away without paying.
We have cameras which take note of your license plate in every gas station and you will be fined if caught.
My boss actually got caught recently (he was in a call during the process and simply forgot), it was not long until we received a call from the authorities and paid immediatly :D
edit: I'm not aware if there was a penalty included.

[ehsnils]

In Sweden it's mostly common to have 1 or 2 cars, but quite a number of households also do well without a car.

[RogiervandenBerg]

First of all, love your video's, great to see these differences! 👍

About the maximum speed: There are (in many European countries) 3 default speeds: within a village/city (50 km/h), outside the village/city (80 or 100 km/h, depending on the country) and the highway (120 or 130 km/h). So when driving around, you indeed already know what speed is allowed. This helps anticipating and predictability.

Same applies to the traffic signs: Using symbols in combination with shapes and coloring is safer, it's easier and faster to understand and from a greater distance. This is why the traffic signs are standardized in Europe. In the US (I have been driving there too) there does not seem to be one standard. Frequently there is a whole story written out, that you don't even have time for to fully read. This is confusing and thus less safe 🤷‍♂

[chrls.]

Here in France we usually have one car per person, some people have 2 or 3, but the most common case is 1/person.