h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

OK first the explanation.
Falschfahrer (or sometimes Geisterfahrer) are drivers who are driving the wrong way down the autobahn/motorway. (sometimes also on a major dual carriageway etc - where the lanes going in a particular direction of travel are separated by a physical barrier from those going the other way)

for example, if you were on the M1 heading north, and suddenly, in the lane you're in, someone was heading for you.

I hear warnings on the radio around once a week that drivers on X autobahn between Y and Z should be careful because there's a driver going the wrong way. (the advice is to drive as far over on the right as possible to give them less chance of hitting someone which is a horrible regular occurrence when there is such an event)

The way it's broadcast is very easy in German because the word is Falschfahrer and everyone knows immediately what it means.

I had occasion to have to translate that word yesterday and I haven't the faintest idea what it is in English (any version). And then I wondered if it happens in the UK at all? and if so how is it reported on the radio?

And presumably the advice there is to drive on the left as much as possible.

I would have thought, given that you enter and exit the motorway on a roundabout, that it was fairly difficult to drive the wrong way on a motorway and not notice, because you'd have to take a really sharp bend to get on it. Possibly.

There is no equivalent word in English, but it sounds like we need to use one of those excellent German words (Geisterfahrer has a ring to it, I reckon)

It will join a small number of German words we use where we couldn't be bothered thinking up an English term (Schadenfreude, Poltergeist, etc)

I've heard them described as pensioners quite a bit.

Surely if we use the German they should be rechtfahrers or something; they are only doing the right thing for a german dual carriageway after all.

Wrong way driver.


That seems simple enough to me. That said, every time I've heard a report of such it's usually described in many more words. "A driver headed the wrong way on the Gulf Freeway this morning and died in a head-on collision within a mile."


I don't think enough people would get the alert to open lanes on one of our freeways. Radio alerts wouldn't reach enough drivers in time as there are so many radio stations in each city and little coordination between them. I suppose they might use our "Amber alert system" but I don't recall that ever happening. We also have signs over major roads that display traffic conditions and Amber alerts but most drivers ignore these (which is usually justified as Amber alerts are rarely, if ever, effective).

Nope, the only times I've heard about wrong way drivers has typically been well after the event.

I'm all for using the German word, it's very descriptive.

Along with just about everyone I know, I use the TA override system for my in-car music or whatevers. That means when there's a traffic alert it cuts in and I can hear it. I also get the regular half hourly traffic bulletin cutting in. It has saved me from being stuck in a lot of traffic.

Like Baron Grim, I would call it a wrong-way driver. Nine times out of ten, the person behind the wheel is a drunk.

Traveller Wrongly Against Trafficflow.
T.W.A.T.

Foreigner?

Actually, this seems to happen every now and then and it often doesn't end well.

I doubt whether an alert would be issued quickly enough to make much difference. If a T.W.A.T. has driven 10 miles up the wrong carriageway, it has probably only taken 10 minutes - hardly enough time for someone to call the police - the police to alert radio stations - and for the radio station to issue an alert to people listening to music stored on their eye pods.

PP.

Especially with Geisterfahrers, the information is relayed almost instantly. News bulletins will be interrupted, interviews with the President of any country will be interrupted.

Given the number of cars on any stretch of Autobahn and given the fact that basically everyone owns a cell phone, it is a matter of seconds between spotting a Geisterfahrer, tapping 112 into your mobile, shouting "Geisterfahrer on the A2 between Hämelerwald and Helmstedt", the cop who takes the call pushing the red-phone button and repeating the information to all affiliated radio stations (which is virtually every radio station) and the warning being broadcast on every station within a 100 miles of Helmstedt.

We've tried to figure this one out before. When directly asking anyone in the UK, I am usually faced with blank looks. I can't imagine it happening in the US as most road signs are idiot-proof.

Although, having said that, I nearly did it myself in Santa Barbara. Fortunately my passenger was awake (my husband).

I don't mean I was asleep !! It was all those signs for idiots that confused me.

Schilderwald is the German word for that, in case anyone was wondering.

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TA override sounds immensely useful! Wish we had that! As it is, where I am we only get traffic reports from 6 to 8 am and from 4 to 6 pm. And they're spotty. The afternoons are the worst. The most reliable traffic reporting I've found is only reported every half hour, and as it only takes me about 35 minutes to get home, by the time it imparts any useful information I'm stuck in the middle of it.

And wrong-way drivers are like Baron Grim mentioned above, by the time you hear about them it's already over. And it's usually a drunk after 10 pm, and whoever it was has taken someone else into the beyond with him (or her).

TA override sounds amazing. I want it!

it's exactly as Yelbakk (*waves*) said - the information comes almost instantaeously - together with the instructions about how to drive until the all-clear is given.

I'm quite stunned that countries like the UK and the US don't seem to be able to do this.

TC - Schilderwald is a great word, and a dangerous phenomenon.

Given the number of Falschfahrer here (I haven't searched for any studies about ages, nationalities or causes, but I will when I have a few minutes) I wonder if it's really that easy to get on the wrong side of the Autobahn. The huge no entry signs are a giveaway, a big giveaway, but obviously not foolproof.

I don't understand it either. Even if you don't loot at the traffic signs, the very layout of the streets should make it impossible to accidentally become a Falschfahrer. Entrance roads to the Autobahn are always designed to take the driver onto an acceleration lane that runs uzujjjjjparallel (and zu766666666666666666666666

Sorry, that was my cat walking across the keyboard...

Anyway, you will be taken onto an acceleration lane that runs parallel to the speed lanes - and just by virtue of being on the acceleration lane, you are going exactly the right direction. To become a Falschfahrer, you have to do a 180 from the acceleration lane which is just counter-intuitive and goes against anything you EVER experience on any road.

So my take is that Falschfahrer are either mentally incapacitated or act on purpose - for whatever reason.

*Yelbakk waving back - after almost a year of not being able to sign in, hootoo finally accepted my password again *

Welcome back, Yelbakk.

"Override" is a word I've often wanted to use lately but couldn't think of a German translation for. None of the dictionary suggestions seem to convey the right meaning.

As with many versatile words, meaning depends on context. Different meanings will have different equivalents in other languages. "Override" can be anything from "umgehen", "ignorieren", a whole sentence that expresses vaguely the meaning, or even "überreiten" ("Don't over-ride my horse too much, she has had twenty different children on her back this morning and now you want to take her on a two-hundred mile afternoon stroll?" - "Überreite mein Pferd nicht! ...")

I like Schilderwald too

It appears (some way down) on this blog of useful foreign words with no better English equivalents:

http://betterthanenglish.com/

I googled Falschfahrer because I wanted to see if there were any statistics. but I only found articles which seem to indicate that drugs and/or alcohol and/or age were a factor

gosh, Icy, that's great.
I've just "donated" Falschfahrer.