Free ride - YOUR responsibility!
04/06/2012
Those were the days when these signs were installed on the highways in 1961. Not only were there far fewer vehicles than 50 years later, there were also hardly any speed limits on highways (and country roads). Even in Switzerland, the highways were still "free", and it was only a few years later that the "recommended speeds" (e.g. 120 km/h) were changed to the maximum permitted speed of 130 km/h. This was then later reduced to 120 km/h in the times of forest dieback. In Germany, the autobahns remained unrestricted despite sometimes fierce political pressure, but more and more sections were slowed down with maximum speeds.
Vehicle development, however, took the opposite course: cars became faster and faster and at some point even the car manufacturers themselves imposed a sensible limit of 250 km/h, which even modest family cars with diesel engines can easily reach today.
In 1961, however, a VW Beetle could only exceed 120 km/h with a tailwind and downhill gradient, and even fast motorized vehicles rarely exceeded 140 to 160 km/h. And hardly anyone could afford a Porsche or a Ferrari, because wages were lower, vehicles were comparatively more expensive and vehicle leasing had not yet been invented ...
