One of the good things about living in France is that we do not have to travel by car from Sweden to France any more. During the years we have had a vacation apartment we must have done the 2500 km trip 40 times, so we know what we are talking about. The biggest problem is what we, in our worst moments, call the big road-work south of Denmark. Other calls it Germany.

Most highways in Germany have only two lanes and one of them is filled with trucks, bumper to bumper, from the northern border to the southern border of the country. This “train of trucks” moves in a steady pace of 90 km/h and at any time, one of the trucks, without any notice, can brake out into the left hand lane to pass the others at 91 km/h. You can imagine how long time that takes. At such occasions hundreds of cars have to wait until the truck finally manages to pass one of the others. This would be quite fine in any other place in the world except in Germany. Here someone with one of those cars with a silver star in the front or that other make that have another version of a machinegun sight in front, but this time in blue and white, catches up with the cue in +200 km/h and demand by flashing the headlights to pass all the hundreds of cars cueing behind the slow truck. I learned when I was little that it is not polite to force yourself up to the front of a cue. For English people that are addicted to cueing it must be strange to find out that, in Germany, the one who are last into the cue should be the first one out. For Scandinavian people that are thought not to be aggressive and step on others toes it is also interesting to se how the biggest bully on the road get away with it without any protests in Germany – given they have the right car. Just imagine that you do not just vaporize when you see these signs of German power in your back mirror. What happens is that they pass you on the right hand side with danger for their own life, yours and for those in the right hand lane. The accidents on the German highway are mostly terrible as the speed is very high and there are so many cars involved. Of this reason some of my German friends have not been on a highway for the last ten years.

Those Swedes that have bought themselves the most powerful Volvo or SAAB and have been looking forward to test its ability on the German highway believes that they can behave the same way. Not so! Herrn Schmidt would never move away for such a car, however fast they come, whatever much they flash their headlights. They just ignore such things as foreign cars. This is all right but when they also ignore the German Mercedes wannabes like the biggest Audis and Volkswagens we have got a problem. If you have bought a car like that and do not get the respect you deserve you react exactly like young insecure machos do when they do not get enough respect from their gang. They flip out totally! Talking about dangerous traffic environment!

I must admit I drive quite fast, not as fast as I used to do though and absolutely not as fast as the Germans think I should do to have the right to get out from between the trucks and into the “reserved” left hand lane. I have one principle though and that one I never go back on – to keep a safe distance to the car in front. This is absolutely impossible in Germany. If you are more than a few meters away from the car in front you are sagging and anyone has the right to fill the gap, preferably by passing “you idiot” on the right hand side – which is difficult and takes some virtuosity and a certain mind when that lane is filled with trucks. This is scary but it is even scarier to have a car behind you that are so close that you cannot see the licence plate in your back mirror. But – as long as you see a machinegun sight you know how to behave.

The big moment my wife and I always are looking forward to is when we, on the way south, pass the border to France at Mulouse. Suddenly we drive on a high quality highway with a smooth surface, traffic that is not faster than 140-150 km/h, nobody is bullying, and the surrounding is nice, the views are beautiful, all artefacts on the highway are well designed and you can stop at the most pleasant lay-bys. This is a contrast to the German side where you, except of risking your life, were driving in a corridor of trees and you could not se a bit of the beautiful German landscape and the lay-bys had a design and a standard that you preferred to forget as soon as possible.

Nowadays we fly Ryan Air but we would be happy to take the car to Sweden if it was economically possible to use the AutoTrain between Hamburg and Narbonne. Can anyone explain to me why it has to cost 1300 Euros to use that train when everybody say they are so concerned about the global warming issue and teach us that we should not fly and not use our cars.