What does a yellow diamond against a white diamond-shaped background mean? I see this at intersections with traffic lights or without traffic lights, on islands, at crosswalks, along bus routes, even on the audabons - in urban areas. I don’t see any pattern here!
Extra Credit: What does a yellow, elongated pentagon mean on a white diamond-shaped background? Actually, I’ve only seen this sign once, and it had gray slashes through it…on the A66, perhaps when merging and/or in a congested area. I joke it means “No Surfboards” because if you rounded the corners, it’d almost look like a surfboard! Any clue?
A: Priority road
You have the right-of-way at all intersections on this road until cancelled by a “Yield”, “Stop”, or “End of Priority Road” sign; outside of urban areas, parking is prohibited on this road
A2: End of priority road
You must yield at all subsequent intersections
Sorry, An Gadaí, the second one denotes an end of an alternate route, you can find it about halfway down the second page of your link.
Jinx, are you sure you saw the right-of-way sign on the Autobahn? That wouldn’t really make sense, since there are, by definition, no intersections on the Autobahn.
ETA: The reason these signs are on intersections with traffic lights is that they become relevant when the traffic light fails or is switched off. The hierarchy for right-of-way on any intersection goes (from top to bottom):
This question sure was a trip down memory lane! As a military dependent in Germany, driving was definitely a CHALLENGE. Memorizing all the street signs for the written test was boggling, but everyone I knew held true fear in their hearts over possibly encountering a traffic cop.
Of course, when you mention later to your US friends about driving in Germany, all they want to hear about is driving on the Autobahn. “No speed limits!” Their eyes light up. “You can drive 100 MPH if you want to!”
I perfected the deadpan look and would say, “Ah, the guy driving on the shoulder is going 100 MPH.” Wait a heartbeat. “On a flat.”
~VOW
I couldn’t get it from your description - but you must love surfing that you call this an “elongated pentagon” or surfboard, when to me it looks like an arrow from the start.
Is there such a big difference between the US and Europe regarding street signs? I know that most street signs have been harmonized across Europe (and good thing with all the holiday drivers), except for a few special ones in one country or the other (for which the ADAC gives look-up tables before the holiday season).
People who prepare for the written theory test take endless practice tests not on signs, but on all kinds of traffic situations, and a lot of numbers: how many meters will you need to stop if you are driving 40 kmh? Apparently a lot of those come up.
Um, why? Were you all afraid of being caught drunk driving?
Since we even have one party for car-drivers*, most Germans also confuse freedom with freedom to drive really fast. The ADAC occasionally points out that quite a lot of the Autobahn has also speed limits, either because of accident spots, or practical because of congestion (20 km or more of traffic jams at the start or end of holidays are not unusual), work being done etc.
The Autofahrer- und Steuerzahler Partei = party for car drivers and tax payers. It’s an idiotic fringe party lumped among “others” who don’t make the 5% hurdle at elections.
Nor in the U.S. or Canada, we don’t have the yellow diamonds to indicate right-of-way there either. Those were the signs that particularly puzzled me when I was in Europe.
The US doesn’t use the white circle outlined in red for traffic signage.
Traffic cops strike fear in the hearts of US drivers in Germany because their hand signals and directions seem to be just the opposite of what US cops use to direct traffic. In the United States, a cop facing you full body will probably signal you to STOP. Gotta watch the hands, though, because you could also get directions to turn, or just to continue driving as you are already doing. If a cop stands side-view to you, again, gotta watch those hands. You could be signaled to turn left (even if you don’t want to!) or to stop, or to continue driving as you are.
German cops also have those little paddles to signal drivers. Again, this is NOT something you see in the US. Most US drivers in Germany agreed with me: if they saw a German cop directing traffic, they’d FREEZE, trying to remember, stop, go, WHAT?
Some cops in the US see directing traffic as a chance to perform. They dance, they wave their hands, they beg and plead with drivers to obey. A poor German driver in the US would certainly be at a loss to know what was expected of them!
~VOW
I have to admit that I rarely encounter a policeman signaling traffic, and it’s been a long time since my driver’s test, but that’s just the way I would follow a policeman here in Germany.
Those paddles are no great mystery, they have a green side for signaling “go” and a red side for “stop”.
Just where and when were you stationed that you expected to regularly encounter traffic cops? Granted, I grew up in a big city, maybe things were differently in the rural countryside in the 60s. But in the last decades, even those leftovers would’ve been equipped with those things called traffic lights. (I know that USians think Europe is technologically underdeveloped, but this is not quite true). The only way to encounter a traffic cop is if a traffic light breaks down or is out of order due to works, and a traffic cop takes over (and then, the repair is usually finished on the same day in my city). In less-frequently travelled intersections, they may simply switch to right-before-left rule instead, with a blinking yellow light to indicate “Pay attention!”.
German cops use body position first, because it’s clearer and easier to see than hand signals. So, when you see
front/back = STOP (= red light)
sideways = GO (= green light)
one arm raised = PAY ATTENTION, POSITION CHANGING (= yellow light)
Firstgraders learn a little rhyme to remember this, but grown adults are rendered helpless because it’s too complicated?
Hand signals MAY be used IN ADDITION to body position, to further clarify things. So if a foreign drivers sits there like a stunned rabbit holding up traffic, the cop might make a “come hither/ move” gesture. But hand signals DON’T contradict position - if position says “Stop”, the cop won’t signal “Go” with his hands.
Paddles are, like sticks, only so that you can see the hands better. That’s why we use body position as main signal: it’s easier to see. As for the US not having them: come on, nobody has ever seen a movie with the “follow-me” guy at the airport waving around huge Jumbo Jets with dinky paddles?
Well if traffic cops confused them that much, I wonder how they managed to cope with the rest of traffic and real complicated things like manual transmission or parking, or not driving over bicyclers…
If German traffic cops want to do interpretative dance, they are free to do so in their spare time. On the job, it’s important to communicate clearly.
As for Germans driving in the US, they probably would ignore hand signals. However, with armed road rage drivers on one hand and lawless cops on the other, confusing hand signals from traffic cops are probably one of the lesser worries for Germans driving in the US.
I think the thing I saw in my brief visit to Germany that I really liked was how the yellow light came on under the red just before the light turned green. Therefore no-one had any doubt if they were about to go.
You sure as hell didn’t see anyone run a red light there, cause cars were moving into the intersection the very moment it went green. Wish we had that here.
??? Do you mean you don’t have the normal sequence of lights in the US?
Green = Go
Yellow = attention, red coming up: only a short time left to cross!
Red = stop
Red + yellow = attention, green coming up: in a short time, go!
If by “running a red light” you mean “people crossing after their light has turned red”, people occasionally do that, but are usually prohibited by:
common sense - crashing is likely
severe fines - crossing when the light is red carries a hefty fine. (Even for bikers). You can loose your license if you’re caught crossing when the light is red.
In the cities, many crossings will have what’s called “Starenkasten” (Starlings nest box), a camera that takes a picture if you run the red light.
Jinx wasn’t on the Autobahn; he was bird-watching on the audabon. I’m sure the signage was different there.
As with so many other things that other people assume in their bones are national, traffic lighting is controlled by state or local laws. There are differences in how lights work from place to place. I can’t say someone would never see “Red + yellow = attention, green coming up: in a short time, go!” but it’s extremely rare in my experience.
There’s one policeman in Providence, Rhode Island who is famous as “the Dancing Cop.” If you look at the video on his website, you’re correct that his dancing makes his traffic-direction almost incomprehensible.
Or they assume that what’s national is universal.
Remember that stick-shift cars, while hardly rare, are much less common in the US than in Europe. There’s less benefit from the red+yellow in an automatic.
?? Being alerted to get ready is useful in an automatic too, isn’t it? This isn’t about down-shifting as you approach the intersection and see yellow and know you won’t make it in time; this is about getting ready to move again. How is this different in a manual transmission? You can’t upshift in preparation while still standing.
Well, yeah. Some people (me, for instance) shift to neutral at a light so they don’t have to stand on the clutch for a minute. Red+yellow is the signal to switch back into first gear. In an automatic you just move your foot from the break to the gas - much faster.
In all my years in Germany, I only saw a traffic cop once. It was a construction site near Nuernberg, and fortunately, all I had to do was follow the flow of traffic.
I’m not an idiot. However, GIs and their families have the fear of God (rightfully so!) put into them before they are allowed to drive in Germany. The laws are DIFFERENT, and a stupid mistake can cost a young GI more money than he will ever see in his lifetime. It can also cost him his JOB, and leave a black mark on his reputation that will follow him in civilian life forever. It’s also the nature of the beast that a GI’s WIFE can do something equally stupid that will affect HIM for the rest of his life. By law, a dependent is permitted overseas only as an extension of the military member stationed there. The existence of the dependent, the ability of the dependent to do ANYTHING (live in housing, obtain medical care, shop in military stores, even obtain a job) exists only because of the military member. So the command is rather emphatic in stressing that driving in Germany is a TEENSY BIT more complex than driving in the US.
The majority of people simply brush that responsibility aside, and figure it’s something to worry about later. Then there are those like me, with a more than average amount of brains and common sense. The business about traffic cops is that it is 180 degrees in the opposite direction of the way I had trained my driving brains in the US. As we all know, driving is rather instinctual. If you’ve learned to drive properly and responsibly, you depend on your brain to make automatic decisions for you. And the little things can trip you up. For me, the pebble in my proverbial shoe was the traffic cop. Black is white, up is down, yes is no.
I never got into an accident, never got a ticket, and I enjoyed my two stays in Germany immensely. I traveled, I learned, and I tried to experience both oppportunities to the fullest. Which is more than 90% of the other families of dependents I saw over there.
