U.S. Autobahn?

[Diablomonkey]

When I was on the way home to night my dad and I started to talk and I brought up the Autobahn, I though that it would be sweet if there where to be a U.S. Autobahn but it would have to be some requirements in order to get on it. Here is what we came up with as far as what the road would be like and the rules/requirements.

1.) It would run from L.A. (or not) and Seattle all the way to New York. ( kinda shaped like this >------ )

2.) The asphalt would be 18-24'' thick.

3.) There would be a fee of about $50 to get on it.

4.) There would only be on-off ramps every 50-100 miles

5.) You would have to have your car certified to make sure it was safe (I.E. no loose fenders and what not, you have the correct tires, a good suspension, ect. ect. ect.).

6.) The minimum speed would be 90MPH.

7.) You MUST stay in the right lane except to pass.

8.) You would have to have a helmet on (that one was my dads idea I didn't like it too much).

9.) You must go through a drivers training course and prove you can handle your car.

So let me know what you guys think and feel free to give some input as to what you think would be good for this U.S. Autobahn to have.

 

[ND4SPD]

An autobahn in the US seems interesting, weren't they talking about building a highway a while back that would run from Canada to Mexico and it wouldn't have speedlimits? I wonder if the idea is still floating around or it was killed off.

 

[Omnis]

No. Freaking. Way. End thread.

Firstly, why wouldn't it go to Florida or Texas or something? Nevermind that, though. That thing would be polluted with idiots. If the road is public, but is restricted to only those that can handle-- let alone afford-- cars that do speeds needed for an unlimited speed limit, then it certainly wouldn't fly with using public money. It would need to be a private road, and even Red Bull couldn't afford to maintain it.

 

[Keef]

Hopeless. It won't happen.

Now, my stubborness aside, your requirements are alright I suppose. Except the helmet thing. Having a helmet on, where you can hardly move your head and can't see everything when you move your eyes, is completely unacceptable on a public road. Even looking in your mirrors would be made difficult if you had a huge, bulky helmet on.

As Omins stated, the main problem in America is bad drivers. We're just different than the people in Germany. The way we operate and think is just different, wether it be driving or cleaning our houses. A limitless autobahn just would not work here.

 

[Diablomonkey]

As Omins stated, the main problem in America is bad drivers. We're just different than the people in Germany. The way we operate and think is just different, wether it be driving or cleaning our houses. A limitless autobahn just would not work here.

Thats what number 9 on the list is for......

 

[Wolfe]

As has already been said, americans are too immature and incapable of handling a vehicle properly to have an Autobahn in the same sense of what the Germans have. Your scenario seems to have addressed this issue, but introduces others...

#3 -- although it seems somewhat reasonable on paper, I think the fee would be deemed too steep to be worth the trouble by most people, especially with the cost of the extra fuel they'll be burning.

#4 -- driving at the speeds you're implying drains fuel a lot faster than driving at 55-65mph. At the very least, there should be gas stations available in shorter intervals.

#5 -- how exactly would this be controlled? An inspection every time you get onto the highway?

#7 -- good luck teaching americans to do that.

#8 -- a bit excessive, I think.

 

[Kylehnat]

I think the Interstate system works just fine. You can get pretty much anywhere, and can drive at a decent speed.

 

[Keef]

Right, Kyle.

And gettign people to drive in the right lane will never work. I used to be a fan of doing it the proper way, since that is the proper way, until I realized something. If you're in the right lane, it's more difficult for a police officer's radar to catch you when they're in the median, which is where they uaually are, and if they do catch you it's easier to jump off at the next exit before they have time to pull out into traffic. So, logic triumphs over "right".

 

[Omnis]

I think the Interstate system works just fine. You can get pretty much anywhere, and can drive at a decent speed.

Well, I thought that would automatically rule out an autobahn, but chose to debunk it for other reasons. What we would save in time for traveling at high speed, we would waste with menial BS regulations and other clearances.

I'd rather save gas, my life, and my patience by doing 80 on our already sufficient highways.

 

[Solid Lifters]

Not in America. Ever.

Kids (and some adults) are too stupid here and don't respect cars. In Europe, they know not to take Dad's Audi on the Autobahn at 180kmh. until they've had proper training.

 

[crimson_menace]

Well, I thought that would automatically rule out an autobahn, but chose to debunk it for other reasons. What we would save in time for traveling at high speed, we would waste with menial BS regulations and other clearances.

I'd rather save gas, my life, and my patience by doing 80 on our already sufficient highways.

Agreed.

 

[Small_Fryz]

Ive seen a few times a guy in a Mercedes crash on the autobahn at 240kph and walk away to tell the tale (sadly i can never find it on the net). Correct me if im wrong but arnt european cars much safer than most American cars?

 

[Max_DC]

Not in America. Ever.

Kids (and some adults) are too stupid here and don't respect cars. In Europe, they know not to take Dad's Audi on the Autobahn at 180kmh. until they've had proper training.

Sorry, that's not correct. You don't get high speed training here in Germany, not as part of the ordinary driving licence. I agree, that actually getting a driving licence might be a little harder here, but after you got it you're free to race your dad'S Audi at 250 km/h if you like it. And people do. I did. Only that the Audi was a C32 AMG and I drove 280 km/h. Two days after I got my licence. Maximum speed before that run : like 150 km/h...
If that was a smart idea is another question, what I wanted to say is, that people do that.

Why it works in Germany nevertheless ? Pretty safe cars with strict regulations ( you are not allowed to use any part on a car if it is hasn't been tested by the TUV ( government organisation ), not even aluminium pedals or white blinking/indicator lights ) and we consequently follow the "only overtake another car on the left side" rule. That's it.


So I don't see a reason why it shouldn't work in the USA. But before that you'd have to follow those two rules above ( safe cars and no overtaking on the left side ) for like 5 years. After that, simply abolish the speed limit on huge highways and interstates....👍

 

[TheCracker]

So I don't see a reason why it shouldn't work in the USA. But before that you'd have to follow those two rules above ( safe cars and no overtaking on the left side ) for like 5 years. After that, simply abolish the speed limit on huge highways and interstates....👍

I thought the German authorities were thinking of abolishing the idea of no speed resrictions on the Autobahns and bringing in a blanket speed restriction in line with most other countries?

Although i think it's been considered for enviromental reasons rather than safety reasons.

 

[Omnis]

Here's another point worth mentioning. If America was actually willing to spend THAT much money on an Autobahn, I think they'd make a vacuum bullet-train rail instead. Much less hassle...

 

[Pebb]

If a new Auto Bahn came up in another nation outside of Europe, then I bet it would be in Japan.

 

[Specialized]

If a new Auto Bahn came up in another nation outside of Europe, then I bet it would be in Japan.

To be fair i doubt that will ever happen. They already have one of the fastest train transport systems in the world and the city areas are so built up its just not nessesary and probably dangerous with so many people around. Forgive me if im wrong but isnt japan mainly built up cities becuase of all the mountains taking up a vast area of land? Therefore it would seem improbable for a autobahn to connect the cities up due to the mountains being in the way.

Spec....

 

[Kylehnat]

Correct me if im wrong but arnt european cars much safer than most American cars?

A Mercedes is much safer than a Dodge Neon at speed, but that's universal across all nations (replace Dodge Neon with whatever crapbox is popular in your country).

 

[wfooshee]

When I was on the way home to night my dad and I started to talk and I brought up the Autobahn, I though that it would be sweet if there where to be a U.S. Autobahn but it would have to be some requirements in order to get on it. Here is what we came up with as far as what the road would be like and the rules/requirements.

1.) It would run from L.A. (or not) and Seattle all the way to New York. ( kinda shaped like this >------ )

2.) The asphalt would be 18-24'' thick.

3.) There would be a fee of about $50 to get on it.

4.) There would only be on-off ramps every 50-100 miles

5.) You would have to have your car certified to make sure it was safe (I.E. no loose fenders and what not, you have the correct tires, a good suspension, ect. ect. ect.).

6.) The minimum speed would be 90MPH.

7.) You MUST stay in the right lane except to pass.

8.) You would have to have a helmet on (that one was my dads idea I didn't like it too much).

9.) You must go through a drivers training course and prove you can handle your car.

So let me know what you guys think and feel free to give some input as to what you think would be good for this U.S. Autobahn to have.

1. Interstates were originally designed (in Eisenhower's mind, anyway) to be rural only, not enter the cities. You'd have spurs into the cities. Didn't make sense, so Interstates go everywhere. They have to. People are everywhere, not just LA, Seattle, or New York.

2. Pavement is already pretty thick, but not that thick. It doesn't have to carry heavy bombers or C5-A's, just trucks. Concrete is usually 10 to 12 inches on top of up to 18 inches of prepared substrate. Asphalt is not as thick, but has the flexibility to keep its surface. Damaged concrete paving is broken, damaged asphalt is rutted, generally. Speaking of trucks, I'm assuming your highway is off-limits to freight, so your thickness is totally unnecessary. Highway engineers consider ordinary cars as no load.

3. 50 bucks for the whole length, or just to Las Vegas, or what? Tolls are nothing new, but it has to be balanced for use.

4. Too far. That's a quarter of the fuel capacity for some cars at 70. At 90 or 100, it would be half the tank.

5. The current rural Interstate specs were for safe travel at 70 in 1950's American cars. Floating under-damped suspensions, drum brakes, 5-turns lock-to-lock steering. Any modern car that can pass a state inspection will be fine.

6. There are cars with barely enough cooling capacity for 70 for any length of time. With aerodynamic loads, the cooling system will be working (just a guess, I'm sure someone can kick in here) about 4 times as hard at 90 than at 70. And if you're pulling a trailer, you just can't do it. No trailers? Fine, you just lost half your toll revenue source.

7. That's already the rule nearly everywhere, and almost universally ignored. Florida had a left-lane bandit law on the books last year, but it died for fear of "encouraging" reckless speed. The law would have made it illegal NOT to move over for faster traffic, even if you're doing the speed limit. (That's the problem, someone doing 70 in the left lane thinks they ARE the faster traffic, and there is no need to move over.)

8. Not gonna happen. We can't even make motorcyclists wear helmets by law.

9. No politician seeking election anywhere is EVER going to put anything out there requiring citizens to do anything difficult to get a license. I'm nearly 50, and the only time I've had to demonstrate driving ability was at 16. I had to drive around the block in city traffic, stop at a stop sign, back up in the parking lot, and park in a really big parallel space. Since then I've renewed by taking a quick eye exam once in a while, and now not even that. I renew online or by mail every 6 years. They don't even really know it's me, do they, much less than I can still see, or drive safely?

So basically, you want a private highway for the driving elite. Public money will never be used to fund it (those who are not in your elite will surely object) and it's far too expensive for private funding. Those who could afford to contribute already have things like Gulfstreams and Lears, which are a bit quicker in the long run.

But, if you could fix #9, driver training and licensing, the Interstate system would work as it is.

 

[FoolKiller]

So let me know what you guys think and feel free to give some input as to what you think would be good for this U.S. Autobahn to have.

Unless my German professor (from near Ramstein, Germany) was lying American Interstates are basically the same as German autobahns, but with speed limits. You are basically talking about a long race track.

An autobahn in the US seems interesting, weren't they talking about building a highway a while back that would run from Canada to Mexico and it wouldn't have speedlimits? I wonder if the idea is still floating around or it was killed off.

I know they are working on I-69 that will run from Canada to Mexico when it is finished (in 20 years), but I never heard the no speed limit thing because it will use certain sections of current interstates. I know on I-24 in western Kentucky you will see signs that say "Future I-69 Corridor."

 

[AMG.]

1.) It would run from L.A. (or not) and Seattle all the way to New York. ( kinda shaped like this >------ )

9.) You must go through a drivers training course and prove you can handle your car.

1 IF as you imply the road is straight, then point 9 becomes obsolete.
Anyone can 'drive' a car in a straight line.
A lot of roads in the US are near straight anyway. The only real difference in your 'wish' would be the lack of a max speed.

I suspect flying would be a lot cheaper and faster.

Judging from what I've seen on TV and was just confirmed by Wfooshee, the amount of learning to pass a driver's licence in the US doesn't amount to much in the first place. In NL you'd have to take proper lessons for a minimum of 15 hours if not more, pass a pretty tough theory exam and an hour's worth of practical exam and pray a lot that the examinator doesnt flunk you (which happens quite often).

AMG.

 

[Roo]

Anyone can 'drive' a car in a straight line.

Tell Richard Hammond and any drag racers that

Given everything you've mentioned in the inital post in this thread, you're halfway to a track day anyway. Why not just go the whole hog and make it a proper track? A 10 mile straight, say, charge $50 to drive on it and use all the other rules you mentioned. It's a lot safer - they'd be emergency services there all the time - and wouldn't encourage people to do it on the public highways.

 

[exigeracer]

Everything has been said, but forget about the little rules. If government agencies are making traction control mandatory on all new cars by 2010, do you really think they would consider something like this?

Less than not likely.

 

[Max_DC]

I thought the German authorities were thinking of abolishing the idea of no speed resrictions on the Autobahns and bringing in a blanket speed restriction in line with most other countries?

Although i think it's been considered for enviromental reasons rather than safety reasons.

Politicians talk a lot, there won't be a general speed limit on Autobahns in the next years aswell as no forced CO² maximum, our chancellor made that clear yesterday.
Those are pointless arguments in order to please certain parts of the population.

Apart from that I'd say at leats 50% of the German Autobahns have a speed limit anyway ( near/in cities etc )

To be fair i doubt that will ever happen. They already have one of the fastest train transport systems in the world and the city areas are so built up its just not nessesary and probably dangerous with so many people around. Forgive me if im wrong but isnt japan mainly built up cities becuase of all the mountains taking up a vast area of land? Therefore it would seem improbable for a autobahn to connect the cities up due to the mountains being in the way.

Spec....

Well I also doubt that Japan will get a speed limit free highway, but they'd have a perfect base indeed. Very civilized and careful drivers, a perfect road condition and high car saftey regulations.

As for Japan's mountains... they are in fact in the center/North of Japan, while the big cities are in the flat part of Japan, Tokyo, Yokohama, Kawaski, Nagoya, Kobe, Osaka, Kyoto, Hiroshima etc are already connected with a straight highway without a mountain in between, so it would make sense to have no speed limit on that part at least


I've been driving over 1500 miles on Japanese streets and I found many many highways that are just like our speedlimit free Autobahns... actually I never cared about the Japanese speed limit, I travelled at 150 km/h ( 80 allowed ) most of the time. Since they are toll roads they are not that crowded ( Tokyo/Osaka area is an exception of course ).
The rural normal streets are even better, many many curves, empty, perfect for driving fast.

Btw I got pulled over once by a police car for speeding ( it was covered, looked like a normal car ).
Those guys were really chilled, after 5 min of talk we could just move on without paying a single yen, although I was 70 km/h over the speedlimit about 10 meters behind a truck
They laughed a bit, one officer said that he drove a BMW as private car, I think they really liked the fact that they met 4 German tourists...
They advised us to break the max speed by no more than 20 km/h in future Damn... I miss Japan...
That would probably mean a 250$+ fee in Germany

 

[YSSMAN]

I'm not certain what the point would be having an "American Autobahn." I mean, most interstate highways are ran around 70 MPH, some as high as 75 or 80 MPH (depends on state), and even then, the Police themselves often decide how fast is too fast on the highway.

Take my lovely state of Michigan, one in which the state regulates our freeway speeds at 70 MPH. In most cases, largely depending on where you are in the state, most people know that the "actual" speed-limit is 80 MPH+. However, in Michigan, having an unlimited speed limit would be suicide with the weather we have here. Combine that with poor road quality and upkeep, and further then the fact that Americans HATE paying higher taxes (which would be required for construction), it won't happen.

---

If it did, this is how we would have to lay it out...

1) New York to Los Angeles (through Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles)
2) Detroit to Miami (Detroit, Atlanta, Daytona, Miami)
3) Seattle to San Diego (Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, San Diego)

 

[skip0110]

People in the US won't get off their land to build this. Just imagine how many people will need to be relocated; how many farms you'll be cutting in half.

 

[Solid Lifters]

Sorry, that's not correct. You don't get high speed training here in Germany, not as part of the ordinary driving licence.

That's not what I meant. I didn't say it would be any professional training.

 

[Evolution.]

Renting a spot at a track is much more convenient, safe, and almost always more fun.

 

[Silverzone]

An Autobahn in the U.S. wont end up well. At all. There would be way too many wrecks.

 

[McLaren]

When I was on the way home to night my dad and I started to talk and I brought up the Autobahn, I though that it would be sweet if there where to be a U.S. Autobahn but it would have to be some requirements in order to get on it. Here is what we came up with as far as what the road would be like and the rules/requirements.

1.) It would run from L.A. (or not) and Seattle all the way to New York. ( kinda shaped like this >------ )

As a person who has driven the autobahn, here's my views on your list.

1st, it needs to run through the mid-to-southern parts of the US. The north is filled with mountains. Yes, there's some plains, but in comparison to the south, not a lot. The south also has a lot of flat and slightly hilly land to make easier construction. The areas are also not quite has civilized. Besides, up north, you would get a lot of farmers complaining about ruining the mountain views of the north which are amazing.

For Omnis, for it to run through Texas, it would have to run below Dallas-Fort Worth, and above Houston for the greatest room available. Plus, having the roads near the coast is more than likely more worth while than the mountains.

2.) The asphalt would be 18-24'' thick.

Not a road genius, so I don't know a whole lot about why as to this.

3.) There would be a fee of about $50 to get on it.

Make it $20 and you'll get a better deal. I'll explain below this.

4.) There would only be on-off ramps every 50-100 miles

Nice idea, but they'd need to be more near cities, and not a random field.

5.) You would have to have your car certified to make sure it was safe (I.E. no loose fenders and what not, you have the correct tires, a good suspension, ect. ect. ect.).

Another ok idea, but that means an inspection garage would be at every on-ramp. That'd take some dough, and probably wouldn't be needed. It'd be better to have police stop them anyways like they do on US highways now.

6.) The minimum speed would be 90MPH.

This is one of the most unknown facts about the German Autobahn. Plain and simple fact is that there are speed limits on the Autobahn. 2nd off, accidents and backups do occur on the Autobahn which heavily effect the speed limits. There is no speed limit in certain places. You'd have to have all kinds of signs to mark accidents ahead and different speed limits.

7.) You MUST stay in the right lane except to pass.

The only way to enforce that is to do it the way the Germans do it. Police.

8.) You would have to have a helmet on (that one was my dads idea I didn't like it too much).

Naw. You don't need it on the autobahn, so why this?

9.) You must go through a drivers training course and prove you can handle your car.

Won't happen, plain and simple. Isn't done for the Autobahn and won't be done here because
A) A driving course is already the US' "way" of showing you can drive a vehicle and
B) Not everyone will speed.

If you wanted that idea, it'd be open only to those with racing licenses.

Not to mention, no one will take 30 minutes of their time just drive on a highway.

So let me know what you guys think and feel free to give some input as to what you think would be good for this U.S. Autobahn to have.

You've got some good ideas, but most will have be done the way the Germans do it.

There will need to be a couple rest stops, police stations, attractions, and anything necessary for medical means to get people to go. Police vehilces will need to include many cars who the ability to go 160Mph without any hardship. Something like this will attract major speeders. They'll also have to be allowed to go outside state boundaries.

But really, this what Route 66 was thought of. It'd take some MAJOR debating with the local governments, get approved, then get construction, and most important explain why this would be good for the US, and why it'd be different from Route 66.

It'd need to be big too. R66 gets packed, so something severe will need to be put on those who take up "passing" lanes, and at least 3 lanes wide.