LKW Maut

[Snowman]

At the risk of being a post whore today , but I have been gone for awhile.

Can someone fill me in on what the towers on the autobahns here in Germany actually do? I know it is to tax the LKW's but what does each box/camera actually do? If I happen to be unknowningly and unintentionally a little above the posted speed limit will I get a red light in my face?

As much as I hate the LKW's on the roads (like one doing 100kph and another doing 105kph and then pulling out RIGHT in front of you and then taking 5km just to pass ) I hate the maut even more because I know we will be next in this tax hungry country.

[bigmek]

Hi !
Well, you can relax... Those "TOLL COLLECT" towers are just for the toll collection. They communicate with the little boxes installed ini the trucks and send the data via satellite/GPS navigation to the servers. There is no speed trap installed in those. But there are some towers that are indeed speed traps on the autobahn, but they are usually looking old already and are easy to figure out.
The toll collect is "on ice" so far, since it is not working properly.
Many greetings
Marc

[Snowman]

I guess I spoke to soon. I heard that they are considering a 150 euro a year toll for cars now

[southern_coug]

Actually no one really knows what those towers do.
They scan every single vehicle (no matter if it's a truck, car, motorcycle or whatever) for size, license plate number, maybe speed and probably some other stuff. Unfortunatelly nobody will really tell you.
For example some civil rights organisations have requested an overview of all collected data and how they are used but didn't get any answer.
Since Toll Collect isn't working at all they've also requested to switch them off which hasn't been done (for whatever reason).
Call me paranoid but I don't think that collecting taxes is the only purpose of those installations :o

Tom

[Snowman]

I agree, just another way the government (any government) likes to control :twisted: the people. If I am going to be monitored then I should be told about it and what it's purpose is and why. I really love living here in Germany but the politicians don't fear for their jobs over stuff like this like they do in the states. Everyone here complains about the maut and gas prices but they don't do anything about it. Oh well, different culture with different tolerance levels.

[tst89]

@Snowman

You're right with the different tolerance levels.
I'm asking me since a long time until something happens with
the gas prices. In the US they would not tolerate it..... :(

[southern_coug]

I think most germans simply think that they can't change it anyway, no matter what they do.
If you look at the polital parties here, they all just want the same -> their own personal profit and power.
But looking at Bush, Cheny, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld and the rest of the radical necon's, I honestly don't think that US politics is much better. For example looking at Ashcrofts TIPS system it doesn't seems that personal freedom is a valuable good for them.
Just my 2 cents.

[Snowman]

True, true. The current "regime" does not seem to care to much about personal privacy, but if someone wanted to raise taxes on gas or institute a federal toll system on the highways they wouldn't stand a chance to get elected/re-elected. I can see how the greens would love the autobahn maut and get their puppets the SPD behind it, but I was dissapointed to hear about the CDU. What they should do is tax the trucks more if they use the B roads to take short cuts. B50 between Bitburg and Trier is almost undrivable because of the amount of trucks on it. the 30 kilometers or so can take an hour sometimes. But this is typical of all governments now, more taxes and less for it.

COUGARS RULE!!!!!