Elephant race

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article or paragraph presents the situation in Germany and Austria . Help us to describe the situation in other countries.

Elephant race with three trucks on the A3 in Germany

Elephant race is a slang term for a situation in which one truck overtakes another on a multi-lane road (usually a motorway ) with little speed difference .

Quantitative consideration

The overtaking process usually takes several minutes, due to the small speed difference between those involved, specified by the legal speed limit of 80 km / h + 6 km / h tolerance and the speed limiter in the truck, which is adjusted to 90 km / h. Even if the respective legally prescribed safety distance of 50 m is roughly exceeded at over 50 km / h for trucks, it is not allowed to overtake below 10 km / h differential speed. A difference in speed of one meter per second corresponds to 3.6 km / h, so with a 4 km / h difference an elephant race takes at least half a minute if the drive is very close and the car is reeved immediately after the overtaking process has been completed.

If you factor in the veering and reeving as well as the distance before the overtaking maneuver, a typical overtaking maneuver will take 3 minutes and extend over 4 kilometers with a speed difference of 2 km / h. Such attempts sometimes fail and are terminated, especially when the increased air resistance consumes the slight excess speed or the gradient changes.

The time advantage achieved is very small, even over a day. So you need 6 hours and 15 minutes for a distance of 500 km with a constant 80 km / h. If the route is really free all the time and is driven at a permanent 82 km / h, 6 hours and 6 minutes are still needed, i.e. not even 10 minutes less. These 10 minutes of time savings for a truck driver stand in contrast to the much higher time lost by the large number of car drivers on two-lane motorways.

Situation in individual countries

Germany

In the federal German road traffic regulations , this process is referred to as “overtaking with insufficient speed difference” and - as it is not permitted - is punished with a fine of 80 euros and a point in the Flensburg register of fitness to drive .

Overtaking with insufficient speed difference has been punished with a fine since April 2004 (combined with an entry of points in the register of fitness to drive ) instead of just a warning fine as before . This regulation is based on the wording of the regulation for all road users. The new regulation in the catalog of fines dispenses with stipulating a minimum speed difference, but refers in the grounds to an older decision by the Frankfurt / Main Higher Regional Court, in which a truck driving at 70 km / h is overtaken by a vehicle that is only 10 km / h faster , was considered inadmissible.

Judgments

If an overtaking maneuver with a differential speed of less than 10 km / h ( § 5  2 sentence 2 StVO) takes more than 45 seconds on a two-lane motorway, it is an improper traffic maneuver if it unreasonably impedes the flow of traffic. In this case, a truck was on the A 1 overhauled over a distance of about two kilometers and a duration of 80 seconds another truck. According to the court's findings, the elephant race led to a significant obstruction of other road users, so that a fine could be imposed.

A transport company from Kiel had sued against the truck overtaking bans on the A 7 , A 45 and A 8 and failed before the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig. The judges ruled the majority of the truck overtaking bans lawful. The haulier had complained that the legal requirements for truck overtaking bans with evidence of a specific local danger were missing.

Further measures

The federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate introduced an initiative to the Federal Council for a truck overtaking ban in ice, snow and heavy rain on motorways. In addition, of the 12,200 kilometers of autobahn in Germany, around 2,500 km are at risk of congestion. Therefore, there should also be temporal and regional truck overtaking bans to combat congestion.

Austria

On June 1, 2014, an amendment to the road traffic regulations introduced a driving ban for the third and fourth lanes of motorways and expressways in Austria . An expert opinion by the Kuratorium für Verkehrssicherheit shows that trucks are disproportionately often involved in accidents with personal injury.

Of the total length of the motorway and expressway network of 2,178 km, 700 km have three lanes and 40 km have four lanes.

Web links

Wiktionary: Elephant race  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ No overtaking sign 277 with comment
  2. ↑ "Elefantenrennen auf der Autobahn" - Report in the Bavarian Radio on April 5, 2018 ( Memento from July 13, 2018 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ The fire brigade got stuck because of the elephant races on the motorway because no rescue lane was formed
  4. ↑ VersR 1994, p. 700.
  5. ↑ The film: A typical example of how an "elephant race" is initiated and then ...  ?
  6. ↑ OLG Hamm, Az. 4 Ss Owi 629/08 = km / h difference when overtaking ... + in the period of 45 seconds + ... the difference in speed
  7. ↑ Verkehrsrundschau of September 23, 2010 truck overtaking bans are legal and BVerwG 3 C 32.09 & BVerwG 3 C 37.09 of 23 September 2010 - lawsuit for truck overtaking bans https://www.bverwg.de/230910U3C37.09.0 and OLG Zweibrücken Az: 1 SsRs 45/09 v. November 16, 2009 ( Memento from October 17, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) and OLG Frankfurt a. M. (VersR 1994, p. 700) and Bay VGH 11 BV 08.481 and 482 of July 29, 2009 lawsuit for truck overtaking bans and - the carrier has largely failed against truck overtaking bans .




  8. ↑ Verkehrsrundschau - The Federal Council's initiative to prohibit trucks from overtaking in heavy rain, ice and snow
  9. ^ Evening paper of February 21, 2009 No overtaking in snow, heavy rain and fog.
  10. ↑ Third lane: No more "Elefantenrennen" orf.at, May 27, 2014, accessed April 11, 2019.
  11. ↑ Truck driving and overtaking bans asfinag.at, accessed April 11, 2019.