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I live in the USA. My friend Kristin is from Germany. She got her driver's license in Germany when she was 28. She trained awhile for it and then took 3 tests:

I live in the USA. My friend Kristin is from Germany. She got her driver's license in Germany when she was 28. She trained awhile for it and then took 3 tests: city driving, highway driving, and nighttime driving. From how she described it, the training and the testing was much more rigorous than anything that has existed in the USA.

oynqr 5y ago
There is only one actual practical driving test. Nighttime and Autobahn driving are just special lessons.
wiredfool 5y ago
I live in Ireland, used to live in the US, and had to take the Irish driver training and test as an adult, experienced driver. (Who had been driving approx as long as my instructor had been alive). The test was difficult, picky, and the things that they were looking for were not necessarily correlated with safe, strictly legal driving. (e.g., target speed in a 50KPH zone (urban area) was 53, not 49, and to not approach that with conviction made you a too timid driver.) And despite the intensive tests -- drivers here are crap. On the dog walk tonight, there were 3 cases of drivers failing to yield at crosswalks.
- emj 5y ago
  I know nothing about the infrastructure in Ireland, but the drivers in the US kill at least twice as many people. Letting people drive cars at 50 km/h in an urban area is crazy, everyone you hit at those speeds die.
  - gonzo41 5y ago
    What speed in miles would you think is Apr. Because 50km/h give you pretty good relation time. The trick is not to get in a crash from the start
    - zip1234 5y ago
      They just lowered it in Paris to 30km/h. Lower speed is directly correlated with less crashes. The other benefit is less noise, which is very important in an urban area. In most urban areas now the loudest most constant noise is from vehicles.
    - wiredfool 5y ago
      50KPH is the norm in any built up area, including in housing estates. Like a subdivision. That's 30mph, for a place where kids play in the green, cats dart out between parked cars, and there's tons of ped traffic.
  - wiredfool 5y ago
    I suspect it's well more than 2x the people, Ireland is only 5.5 mil total (essentially the size of Washington State). We've got rural roads that are slightly more than one car wide, some with grass growing down the middle, and are signposted for 80kph. We've got motorways at 120kph.
jimmaswell 5y ago
I think we're fine how it is in the USA. Germany's licensing system is absurd overkill and the cost and time commitment leaves out a lot of people who have a need to drive but can't afford it.
- mitchdoogle 5y ago
  In 2019, USA rate of traffic-related deaths was 7.3 per 1 billion vehicle-km. Germany's rate was 4.2 per 1 billion vehicle-km. If the USA had Germany's rate, 16939 lives would've been saved. And you think that's "fine"? Here's where I got my info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...
bluGill 5y ago
Germany's training is easy compared to what would be required to make humans be good drivers.

oynqr 5y ago

There is only one actual practical driving test. Nighttime and Autobahn driving are just special lessons.

wiredfool 5y ago

I live in Ireland, used to live in the US, and had to take the Irish driver training and test as an adult, experienced driver. (Who had been driving approx as long as my instructor had been alive). The test was difficult, picky, and the things that they were looking for were not necessarily correlated with safe, strictly legal driving. (e.g., target speed in a 50KPH zone (urban area) was 53, not 49, and to not approach that with conviction made you a too timid driver.) And despite the intensive tests -- drivers here are crap. On the dog walk tonight, there were 3 cases of drivers failing to yield at crosswalks.

emj 5y ago
I know nothing about the infrastructure in Ireland, but the drivers in the US kill at least twice as many people. Letting people drive cars at 50 km/h in an urban area is crazy, everyone you hit at those speeds die.
- gonzo41 5y ago
  What speed in miles would you think is Apr. Because 50km/h give you pretty good relation time. The trick is not to get in a crash from the start
  - zip1234 5y ago
    They just lowered it in Paris to 30km/h. Lower speed is directly correlated with less crashes. The other benefit is less noise, which is very important in an urban area. In most urban areas now the loudest most constant noise is from vehicles.
  - wiredfool 5y ago
    50KPH is the norm in any built up area, including in housing estates. Like a subdivision. That's 30mph, for a place where kids play in the green, cats dart out between parked cars, and there's tons of ped traffic.
- wiredfool 5y ago
  I suspect it's well more than 2x the people, Ireland is only 5.5 mil total (essentially the size of Washington State). We've got rural roads that are slightly more than one car wide, some with grass growing down the middle, and are signposted for 80kph. We've got motorways at 120kph.

jimmaswell 5y ago

I think we're fine how it is in the USA. Germany's licensing system is absurd overkill and the cost and time commitment leaves out a lot of people who have a need to drive but can't afford it.

mitchdoogle 5y ago
In 2019, USA rate of traffic-related deaths was 7.3 per 1 billion vehicle-km. Germany's rate was 4.2 per 1 billion vehicle-km. If the USA had Germany's rate, 16939 lives would've been saved. And you think that's "fine"? Here's where I got my info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...

bluGill 5y ago

Germany's training is easy compared to what would be required to make humans be good drivers.