PS: Mr. Hail, also sorry for the late reply on here. It seems like everybody likes trains. I can also see that, since people can travel together, it does improve social cohesion. Trains in the US may have been a better option when more regular Americans (not just ghetto thugs) lived in the downtown areas. If people have to take other transportation to train stations (for long distance traveling, it slows things down, compared to driving.

I'm sure the Interstate system, subsidized as it was, was a big part of the switchover from railroad to road, but possibly that exodus from the downtowns (OK, white flight) in the 1960s, was a factor too.

Economically, passenger railroads just don't seem to pay in the US, except for on that NE corridor, Washington, FS to Boston.

I've got a couple of posts on this Mr. Hail, with a hat-tip to Steve Sailer for making me think of that downtown problem:

"We All Like Trains" - - https://www.peakstupidity.com/index.php?post=742
"Trains in the Orient vs. America" - -
https://www.peakstupidity.com/index.php?post=744

PS: Thanks for the personal anecdotes, Alarmist. You know they could teach this stuff in driving school, the keeping right and such. I guess people forget anyway, like the same lane-to-same lane turns I've heard about from someone that I never thought was so important.

You hit the problem with only 2 lanes in each direction, but that is really not good driving to begin with, the passing with 3 mph differential. In the US, I think it's because many don't want to speed by more than their personal limit (based on worry about driving record points), say 8 mph over. So, they start passing (and it doesn't help when dickheads on the right decide to take being passed personally and speed up) and don't want to get too extra fast in doing it. Get it over with. The way I think about it, once I pull back to the right, I'm less of a target for speed enforcement. Who knows?

I just remembered that you live over there in Europe, don't you, Alarmist? I was thinking England.

PS: Sorry for the late replies, guys.

Urbando, re those "ghost drivers", I've never heard that term, but there have been such instances of that here too. Usually, the driver is shitfaced drunk. You would think in the modern day, there could be sensors on the off-ramps to detect vehicles moving the other direction and turning on warning signaling on the road (the latter would be the expensive part) but also somehow get to drivers' cell phones.

PS

The stretch from FFM to Darmstadt is four lanes each way and is still largely unrestricted. It was the first stretch of Autobahnn I ever drove in a rented BMW 5, hitting 220 (KMH, that is). One thing most Germans are still good at is getting out of the left lane, followed by not passing on the right, which can cost one one’s licence. Americans could never handle Autobahn speeds without killing far more people because they for the most part have no discipline comparable to that of Germans.

That thingy about the Housefrau doing >140 MPH in an Opel is an exaggeration ... she might get it only up to 120 or so. On anything less than three lanes, she will invariably be overtaking a truck at its speed plus 5 KMH as you approach at 200 KMH or more.

One rude surprise is the seeming hate German Highway engineers have for Germans, with poorly marked unlit stretches that force you to slow down or risk your life ... you cross the border from a well-lit but speed-limited highway in Belgium and floor it in Germany only to realise that you are now racing ahead into darkness with about one second of visible road ahead of you in winding, hilly road.

It seems increasing lengths are being limited to 120 KMH or less these days, but once a German has permission, you had better get out of the way.

PS Germans (or, at least, Bavarians) note the existence of Geisterfahrer (ghost drivers) on the autobahn. This term refers to people who, amazingly, manage to get on the autobahn driving against traffic, e.g. southbound in the northbound lanes, and who frequently cause horrific head-on collisions.

In addition to the exotic sports cars which thunder by one in the left lane (just a dull blur), there are many instances of the Hausfrau From Weilheim tooling along at > 140 mph in the family Opel station wagon.

PS: Mr. Hail, I appreciate the correction on, and speculation regarding, the typo. I will respond more tomorrow to your comment and also to your reply back to me on your site.

PS Number of lanes certainly makes a difference. I’ve mentioned what a pain I-94 from Benton Harbor to Ann Arbor is. I-57 to southern Illinois is also two lanes in each direction and equally a pain. I’ve relatively recently, (2015) and (2017) respectively, driven French autoroutes and British motorways. I can’t say that I paid a lot of attention to the number of lanes in either case, but, thinking back on it, it must have been more than two each way, because I do recall zipping along rather swiftly. Fewer trucks, also, I think. Hail: No doubt that the motor car is a mixed blessing, but I’m pretty sure that the freedom of movement it has given to ordinary people is something that they would fight pretty hard to keep.

PS - It is said often said that Germans are "proud of the Autobahn." I wonder about that.

To the extent I know Germany/Germans, and I spent the better part of a year there once and became conversant in the language and able to follow the news, I also know they love nature. In USA it is no surprise to encounter a highly a disproportionate share of foreign-origin (and US-origin) Germanics out exploring in nature areas and national parks.

I imagine a lot more Germans think of the entire Autobahn/automobile mega-project as a mistake than we might guess from the 'cool' image they have.

The USA went much further with our own "Autobahn/automobile mega-project" in the mid-20th century and while I rarely see it discussed I sense there are signs of revealed-preference discontent with the whole thing now.

The brilliant George Kennan, one of the ultimate old-line early-to-mid 20th century patriots before the rise of the new order of things. He had a very long career and continued writing even until age 100 (to oppose the invasion of Iraq), dying only in 2005. He revealed something of himself in his professed love for trains and the whole rail network. He loved what they did for towns and cities and social cohesion. He pointed the finger at the automobile but especially the sleek highway network, as a force of social dissolution.

(The publication of Kennan's diaries in the 2010s revealed social decline was much on his mind as he observed America in the latter decades of the 20th century, and he was well into non-PC territory for which his statues would be torn down today, if there were any. He is obscure enough within the relevant academic fields that he may survive the ideological purges.)

PS - "a good, fast highway network in Germany had been considered during the Wiemar Republic years in the mid-1020s"

This typo caused one of those delightful free associations.

Imagine Germans of the 1020s AD, a clean one thousands years ago here from the 2020s AD, proposing a "fast highway network" all around the German realms. What would it have meant to them? What would they have done about the highwaymen (and not Willie Nelson and the other guys who called themselves The Highwaymen for a while back there)?

Which makes me also ask, what was passing procedure like on the old roads before the combustion engine? Even with horses or other pack animals providing the movement, some will be faster and some slower than others.

PS. Christopher- no swishy Euro-names in our house!

PS. Ganderson's fine. I had all manner of trouble logging in over at Hail's site- I hit the "forgot your password" button and WordPress assured me they would send me a reset via email, which never arrived. So I used my google account, which has my whole name.

Some girls at school used to call me "Gandy"- I let them get away with it because they were cute. My youngest son's lax nickname in college was "Crandy" as his first name is Christophe.

I thought I sorta implied the Sturgis/surges deal, I must be losing my touch.

PS: Mr. Ewing, thanks for writing in. I think the situation is worse on the Autobahn than on use Interstates between cities for 2 reasons. We don't have near as much traffic most of the time. It can get pretty wide open here, going on those long stretches between cities. Secondly, those 100 kph speed limits for the truckers are damn low and are adhered to pretty much, from what I saw (maybe they were doing 65 mph vs. 62).

In the US I see trucks holding 70 mph lots of the time, except on the long up-grades. You don't have many people really wanting to stay at 90 mph, or even 85, so when you pass the trucks, you don't have to get up to speeds like that. Just get 10 mph faster, speed limit or not, and get er done, that's all I ask.

PS: Mr. Anderson, would you rather I use your proper last name? I've been doing it wrong, cause I somehow thought "Ganderson" was one of those old Scandinavian names. How do I know? I saw your comment on Mr. Hail's site, but wasn't sure you MEANT to write it in like that. You tell me, as I can delete this paragraph of this comment.

Anyway, I appreciate your joke re: wieners and all, but I don't see how you missed "There are no surges in Sturgis."

They just keep talking about cases, not illnesses or deaths. So what? There will probably a lot of cases of the common cold this winter too, and, more seriously, plain old influenza, which kills a significant amount of people on a continual basis. Didn't Mr. Hail's post say 10-11% of all deaths were from the flu?

PS I've noticed that it's the same way on crowded US interstates, two lanes terrible, three lanes great.

It's impossible to go a constant speed on a two lane divided highway and it ends up just being a bunch of fast and slow leapfrogging between the right and left lanes. The speed disparity between the trucks and slowpokes in the right lane and the fastest drivers in the left lane is just too great.

Two lanes is the standard but on more highly used routes in modern America it needs to be three.

PS. You'd have to be a wiener to live in either of those towns. No. Wait, that's Vienna!

Local Papers full of Corona-doom this AM- talking about "surges" in ND, SD, OK, KS... ( notice the supposed "super-spreader event" in STURGIS, SD has disappeared down the memory hole- wonder why?) flyover states full of deplorables, doncha know, and looks like the UK, Netherlands and others are preparing for "Lockdown II, The Wrath of Kahn...err..Fauci"