Germans can drive fast as they want on highways - so why don't they?

HAMBURG: Motorists in Germany can drive fast and furious on the large stretches of the highway, which have no fixed speed limit. And yet it seems the majority of them prefer to stay in the slow lane.

In most countries, cars have theoretical top speeds well in excess of legal limits, but in Germany most people don't use the rare opportunity to put the pedal to the metal and test these top speeds out, new research shows.

The German Economic Institute (IW) study found that the average speed on open highway sections in the populous North Rhine-Westphalia state is just 113.5kph - roughly half of what many diesel and petrol-engined cars are capable.

Surprisingly, almost 83% of drivers voluntarily kept an average speed below 130kph - the recommended but not legally binding speed.

Only 1% of the cars drove faster than 160kph despite the fact that the study was conducted from mid-May to the end of August last year at a time when weather conditions were generally good and free of snow, ice or autumn storms.

Even on weekends with scant traffic, most drivers stayed between 100 and 130kph, according to the research, which included a total of around 1.9 billion cars.

Germany industry magazine Autobild said experts suspect that an increased number of roadworks and rising petrol prices are putting the brakes on would-be highway speedsters.

The findings are likely to amplify calls from many left-wing politicians for limits to be clamped on all roads in order to cut emissions in a country which has been split over the issue for years.

Some 55% of members of the country's huge ADAC automobile club are in favour of a blanket speed limit, with 40% against. The remainder are undecided.

For years, the majority of motorists rejected a general speed limit on highways, the ADAC says, but the number of those in favour of a speed limit has increased recently.

Most zero-emission cars cannot exceed 200kph but there are plenty of powerful petrol or diesel models on German roads with a maximum speed capability of beyond 250kph.