| Just back from a 8500+km road trip (car, wife, and two kids 6 and 1) around Europe where we visited 9 countries (UK, Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Slovenia, Croatia, Greece). For us as a family, France and UK had the safest and more relaxing roads. Italy was OK compared to the usual standard, Slovenia and Croatia had highways with too many slopes but people drive carefully. The ones where we struggled and developed high anxiety were (surprisingly!) Germany and Switzerland. In both latter countries we seriously struggled to relax as driving in any lane becomes a stressful experience. We have decided NOT to cross those countries anymore in our next trips sadly. |
| By death per km France, Italy, Slovenia and Croatia are more dangerous then Germany or Switzerland. German Autobahn is crazy and non-pleasant if you drive slow, but in Switzerland everyone follows the speed limit so it is quite relaxing. Also, you seem to struggle with mountainous roads, which depends on the topography and not the country. |
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| ▲ | 2dvisio 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Agree, though an intensive one (8500km in 6 weeks) that is just subjective experience, which is why I caveated it mentioning that it was our own family personal experience. I lived in a mountainous area of Italy (very narrow roads, full of ups and downs) so I am a fairly confident driver (probably why I was not too stressed driving in Italy) and drove in countries like India and Iran in the past (so very familiar and happy with slow, but very crowded and unpredictable traffic). To clarify, the anxiety we had on Autobahn and Swiss' highways was not a reflection on the quality of the roads, and more a reflection on the driving 'style' combined with the speed that those roads allow. The style was quite aggressive, very fast in every lane, loads of overtakes (car constantly zig-zagging), people coming from the back _FAST_ and staying there, people switching lanes immediately after signalling rather than giving some time for people to notice. Overall, that combination made for a very stressful experience which we have agreed (as family) not to repeat in the future. | | |
| ▲ | jajko 5 days ago | parent [-] | | Not complaining about not having yet another car on the roads here, but your conclusion goes directly against experience of literally every single person living here in Europe for their whole lives that I know. Especially Switzerland, apart from italian-speaking part of Ticino (which is more Italy than Switzerland), people drive well and way above Europe's average. Also Switzerland has 120kmh speed limit, making roads quite a bit safer also due to very frequent stationary radar placements. But then again we have 0.1% of information to make a good picture of your situation, driving skills and habits, vehicle you moved around and so on. But there is for sure a good reason for such discrepancy, ie driving caravan super slow or similar tiny little detail. Also you magically skipped few (pretty horrible to drive) countries if you had a road trip that covered Greece. | | |
| ▲ | 2dvisio 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Have agreed in previous comments that this was subjective (as a family but also as a driver) experience. Maybe one thing that amplified the effect was the high expectations we had for those highways, and maybe that's what made it more shocking for us. Again, I consider myself a 'decently skilled' driver, having driven in many countries over the course of the years, and easily adapting to driving styles (US/Italy/France/Iran/UK/India/etc). Some of these styles are indeed chaotic, but they (generally) operate at slower speed, which allow for corrections and precautions. The thing that threw us off is the combination I have mentioned before: > [...] the speed that those roads allow. The style was quite aggressive, very fast in every lane, loads of overtakes (car constantly zig-zagging), people coming from the back _FAST_ and staying there, people switching lanes immediately after signalling rather than giving some time for people to notice. Overall, that combination made for a very stressful experience which we have agreed (as family) not to repeat in the future. |
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| ▲ | potato3732842 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | >German Autobahn is crazy and non-pleasant if you drive slow, but in Switzerland everyone follows the speed limit so it is quite relaxing The German situation seems vastly superior on the basis that whoever is the "odd one out" or violating the norms should be the one having a bad time. Basically incentivizing homogenous and/or predictable traffic flow, which is safer. | | |
| ▲ | looofooo0 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Well overtaking with 135 one drive 130 should not lead to people driving 2m in your back, which is quite often the case when I am on the autobahn. |
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