Reactions to driving back here in the States after getting back from Germany.

[randomness]

I drive faster now that I've been driving in a place where 85 mph or so is about normal for the middle lane. This will last until I get my first speeding ticket here, I think. :)

Wow, I can fill the tank for less than $25! It was costing about €50 (about $60) to fill the same sized tank in Germany. It got to the point that when I drove through Luxembourg, which has the lowest fuel taxes of any of the countries in the neighborhood, €1.09 a liter felt cheap.

Lanes sure are wide in the States. Even in Boston, the lanes are pretty wide for Europe. Of course, in Europe, they tend to be a bit more consistent than in Boston, where they vary a lot, when they're painted on the roads at all. In Germany, they are very consistent, but narrower, and nearly always well-marked.

Someone needs to fix the street surfaces around here. I've been told that road repair crews in Germany have competitions to see who can build the smoothest surface. They do a great job of fixing potholes; the holes don't last long--the repairs do. At 200 km/h, you feel every ripple in the asphalt.

Comments

[ketzl.livejournal.com]

Yay you're back! You should visit me too :)

Y'know, if states in the US would charge as much gas tax as Europe and most of the rest of the world does, I'll bet we could have smooth road surfaces and lots of signs too... and maybe even afford some public transportation? Nah, couldn't possibly work.

[gravitrue.livejournal.com]

It's not the money, it's the priorities and culture.
The road surfaces in much of the pacific northwest are smooth,
the signage in the mid-atlantic is quite good,
and NYC's public transit is the only major system on the planet that doesn't stop at night.

[dianec42.livejournal.com]

And southern California has absolutely nothing going for it. Don't remind me.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Citrus trees in one's yard? Excellent Mexican cuisine? (I'm reaching, I suppose.)

[frotz.livejournal.com]

Dude! Southern California has an amazing amount going for it. This sort of place (eastern San Diego County) I could visit again and again. Even if one crosses the mountains there's still that lovely ocean, temperate weather, and LA has way better food than Boston.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

LA has way better food than Boston.

True dat.

[dianec42.livejournal.com]

Road-wise though, you have to admit we're pretty much screwed here.

[frotz.livejournal.com]

How so? Pavement is generally well-marked and in good repair. If one is driving (or riding) for fun, you've got fun and utterly gorgeous roads up through the canyons and hills to the east.

Granted, the one problem I do see is that your urban freeways are way over comfortable carrying capacity for a lot of the day, and that y'all seem almost incapable of considering alternatives to driving, which leads to things like the building of yet another north-south highway through one of my favorite state parks. If it's more of a sociopolitical screwing you're talking about, I'm totally with you on that. But if you're just trying to get through traffic, switch to a motorcycle. :)

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

It's not the money, it's the priorities and culture.

In part, it is the money, because money can pay for things which are lower priority if there's a lot of it to go around. However, the priorities and culture don't help here.

The road surfaces in much of the pacific northwest are smooth,

Not by comparison with German or French roads, actually. I'm not sure I'd really want to drive down I-5 in Washington or Oregon at 120 mph, and there were bits of I-84 going west along the Columbia River into Portland which were memorably bumpy. I don't remember I-90 into Seattle being anything really great, either.

They're certainly better than ones around here, though.

the signage in the mid-atlantic is quite good

No argument, though still not as good as UK signage. You can get across England without looking down at a map. German signage failed us once on our way back from Bavaria; they failed to give us a sign for a turn in the middle of Heilbronn. One failure isn't bad.

The French and the Belgians, on the other hand...well, there's the importance of priorities and culture for you. Apparently Belgian TV showed a pair of signs which, translated, said: "<- All Directions" and "Other Directions->".

NYC's public transit is the only major system on the planet that doesn't stop at night.

It may be that it doesn't count as a major system, but parts of Chicago's system also run all night. And that's if you only count rail transit. There are countless cities with overnight buses. Not Boston, though. Grumble.

Any transit system which doesn't give you *some* overnight option has a crippling problem, in my opinion. Paris, London, and Berlin will get you home *somehow*, even that somehow is on a bus.

But yeah, priorities.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

You should visit me too :)

Sure! I tried to call at one point but only got voicemail; I'll try again. I know your schedule is kind of tight, so we should probably coordinate before I come down.