For those outside Germany (it has been reported a lot inside Germany): Expatica has an article in English on the test driver who has been sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment (a custodial sentence, no probation) for speeding. In the course of the trial, the defendant said that he didn’t know why his nickname among his colleagues was Turbo-Rolf.
bq. In a case which stirred public emotions like few others in Germany, a Karlsruhe court Wednesday found a DaimlerChrysler test driver guilty in the deaths of a young woman and her daughter in a high-speed highway accident in July 2003.
There is a longer article on the topic of speeding in Germany too.
FWIW, he was an engineer (was, because he has now been fired) and not an engineer and was on his way to the test track on Papenburg. The media have only now started reporting it correctly. See this morning’s Stuttgarter Zeitung. http://www.stuttgarter-zeitung.de/stz/page/detail.php/606798
An engineer and not a test driver? I don’t quite follow. Thanks for the link. I just posted the link to the article because it didn’t seem to have been reported in the English-language papers, although I’m sure it will be.