Highway Code/Straßenverkehrsgesetz

Following a discussion about Schrittgeschwindigkeit (dead slow) on an ITI list, may I remind people that the Highway Code (British road rules) is online.

The German Straßenverkehrsgesetz (Road Traffic Act) is too.

Here’s an AmE>BE driving dictionary and something about road signs in the USA from the same site, which has a lot of information.

I am sure such materials are online for Austria and Switzerland and for other English-speaking countries.

9 thoughts on “Highway Code/Straßenverkehrsgesetz

  1. I was puzzled by the entry “fair lane” in the AmE-BE driving dictionary. I suppose they mean “fare lane”. Have to be careful: if you wrote “fare maiden”, for example, people might get the wrong impression.

  2. Paul: someone has suggested ‘at a walking speed’ (does ‘pace’ sound a bit too foot-like?), citing ‘Top Gear’
    http://www.topgear.com/content/my_topgear/write_turns/2004_08/48
    The person whose problem this was turned out to be doing it for a German client, and one of the other suggestions was for the original German sign to be replaced with one with a figure 7 in it, indicating to people of every language that 7 kph was the maximum speed. ‘Dead slow’ was rejected as suggesting death to those not from Britain!
    Nick: You must be right. I see Henry Ford’s estate was called Fair Lane!

  3. Trouble is Margaret that 7 would be interpreted by the Brits and possibly the Amis as 7 mph….a bit faster

    Paul

  4. I think I have to protest at that. Apparently most non-German speakers are not British or American. But even if they were, they are living in Germany and seeing signs saying ’30’ and ’70’ everywhere, so why would they suddenly think ‘7’ meant miles?

  5. Sorry my mistake Margaret. Should have realised we were only talking about Schröder’s Republic. I didn’t actually go to the URL mentioned. You are, of course, absolutely right.
    Paul

Leave a Reply to Paul Thomas Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.