Drive like the Germans - and get a baptism of autobahn blitzkrieg writes Kilian Doyle
'WHAT IN the name of all that guzzles bratwurst was that? said I to my passenger as something silver shot past at a million miles an hour
Two second later, my synapses still scrambled, it happened again. A red blur, followed moments later by a huge white one. "This is mental," I blurted, ashen-faced. I had, you'll have gathered, just merged on to my first autobahn and not, as I'd originally thought, strayed into a Large Hadron Collider by mistake.
Here I was, barrelling along in a rented BMW 1-Series hatchback at 180km/h and it was as if I was standing still. Porsches, Mercs, Audis, even Ford Transits were tearing past in the outside lane at speeds their drivers would be hung, drawn and quartered for doing in Ireland. If they were caught, that is.
My trepidation didn't last. Within minutes, I was hooked, the adrenaline of being in amongst all this rampant, screaming horsepower fizzing through my brain.
Plucking up courage, I dropped a gear and tried to nip into the outside lane to overtake the Ferrari tootling along in front of me at a pathetic 160 km/h. Bad move. Within milliseconds, my rearview mirror was ablaze with the flashing headlights of a BMW M5 that had appeared from nowhere.
Chastened, I zipped back in. Whoops. (Rule one on the autobahn: if you can see a speck of light in your rearview mirror that looks like an approach car, it's too late. By the time you shift down, hit the throttle and pull out, a fat banker from Mannheim will already be on your bumper in an S-Class, barking orders at you through his windscreen.) "Don't be such a jessie," said my passenger, having a giggle to herself.
She wasn't laughing 10 minutes later when I - rising to her challenge - tore through a tiny gap at full belt, barrier on one side, truck on the other. "Oh, ye of little faith," scoffed I as she cowered under the dash.
Until my autobahn epiphany, I'd never seen the point of having a really fast car. In Ireland, it's like owning a great big flamethrower. You can't use it anywhere, unless you want to go to jail. But in Germany, it all makes sense. This is precisely what those massive-engined living-rooms-on-wheels the Germans are so good at churning out are designed for.
German drivers are well aware that with such great freedom, comes great responsibility. Other than the odd headcase in a van, there is no messing. The outside lane is used exactly the way it is intended - for overtaking. No Irish-style dawdling at 86km/h. And none of this hideously dangerous nonsense of pulling into outside lanes to let people merge either.
Once the derestricted zone ends, the speed limit is rigidly observed. Not merely because German traffic cops take their jobs very, very seriously, but also because motorists know they'll be able to put the foot down again a few kilometres down the line.
The thing the Germans have realised is that speed doesn't kill. It's bad driving that does the damage.
Which is why derestricted motorways would never work here. We are not law-abiding, sensible, rational Germans. We are stubborn Irish rebels to whom motorway etiquette is an alien concept. Can you imagine the carnage if every bumfluffed thug was allowed drive as fast as his Subaru would carry him?
Anyway, my autobahn adventure reminded me of a story my father told me many moons ago about a friend of his who was sedately cruising along a Bavarian motorway, his wife at his side.
"Ausfahrt must be a huge place," said she, matter-of-factly. "That's about the thirtieth sign for it weve passed."
Her long-suffering husband, bless his cotton slacks, threw his eyes up to heaven. And his foot to the floor.