As a german I have to laugh a lot at this title hahaha

They can be fast in Germany, but the problem is it takes forever for them to start because of bureaucracy..... We have a broken bridge on our highway. They knew about the growing problem since 2015, but fixing the bridge was delayed by bureaucracy. End of 2021 the bridge was closed because of ruinous state, because they did not fix the existing problems. It took until June 2022 for a the permit to build a new bridge and blow the bridge up and only May 2023 the bridge was blown up. They say May 2026 we will have one direction usable again and end of 2027 both directions. Until the residents of the city suffer semi trucks and cars without end 24/7 through residential areas and permanent traffic jam..... They could have had build a provisional bridge years ago when it was known the bridge will be problem and avoid the chaos.... Companies in the region have now problems because not being able to get material and goods from and to their workplaces because of this chaos and trucks that do not need to stop in the region have still to make detours to avoid the traffic jams because of the broken bridge....

Compare this to the Netherlands and Germany will look as slow as a snail...

Doing the striping by hand isn't common in germany. I think they do it here by hand because of the fresh asphalt that is still soft and vehicles would leave tracks in it.

It's not the asphalt that takes a long time. It is the foundation that takes time.

Hey Ian. So I'm a Dutch man living in Germany for about 15 years now. I myself have worked in road construction for 9 years. So I know a bit. In Germany, it takes really long to get road construction done. In comparison to the Netherlands. The biggest challenges in Germany are safety regulations, authorisation and money. In the Netherlands we get the constructions done faster and better. But therefore we pay a hell of lot more on taxes for smooth roads and quick fixes.

We have some really great roads in England that have lasted centuries. We didn't build them though, the Romans did😂

Dear Ian, one thing I have learned is that ... AMERICANS DONT LIKE TO LEARN FROM OTHER COUNTRIES ... which is part of the "we are the greatest nation in the world" ARROGANCE!

I think you should check how streets and intersections are built in the Netherlands - especially local streets are built out of brick, so it's like a giant lego set. When they do (smaller) utility work, they just pull up a part of the brick, do a bit of digging, then same day they put the same brick back down and tamp it. Curb sections are all pre-cast and assembled onsite. The same bricks last decades, so sometimes when a street becomes uneven, they just pull up all the brick, reset the foundation, and then lay most of the same brick back down. There's of course longer projects, but when they installed fiber in our neighborhood the wholel process took like 6 hours.

11:15 The guy does not do the permanent markings. They did a thin chalk line marking that's easy to remove and he use a better visible paint that can handle a bit rain and is easier to see for the guys on the machines that do the permanent markings. The permanent marking is not paint, it's a plastic material that has small glass pieces inside that reflects the car lights for better visibility. Reflective paint is only used in areas with low traffic.

I can well remember the A2 towards Hannover before the year 2000, in which the Expo was held there. Then the A2 was extended continously to 6 lanes - on a 100km stretch between Hannover and Bielefeld. And that took 7 or 8 years of road work! And traffic jams. The most annoying part in road works in Germany is, if they close off lanes with cones for weeks or even month, but you never see a single soul working there. They are just closed and nothing happens. Thats why I have my problem putting German road contruction and efficiency into one sentence.

hahah the titel is just to funny for me as a german. listen this is NOT normal in germany

You should take a look at the ASTRA-Bridge. It's a mobile bridge made for the Swiss government, where the traffic can drive over the construction site on two lanes. Ones the section is done below the bridge, you move it to the next section. To understand this solution, you need to know that we basically have 2 main highways. From Geneva to Chur (West to East) and from Basel to Chiasso (North to South). There are no substitute highways in those directions. If you have to reroute traffic, it's all through the villages. So you either create a huge traffic jam on one side, a slightly less huge one on both sides or you build a bridge to minimalise trafic jam.

I've watched quite a few of your videos over the past few weeks, which is quite remarkable considering I'm not American (but European) and not even particularly interested in cars or construction... But your enthusiasm is simply contagious. Thank you!

#1 is the time for JUST THE SURFACE LAYER ... before you can do this you have to prepare the underbed with gravel, possibly put in stones on the side to curb the flow of water, add drainage points, ... you know ... DOING IT PROPERLY. The biggest amount of time is probably spent on removing the old road surface, so constructions do take more than "just a few days".

near my hometown they built a new bicycle bridge within 2 hours over a 14 lane highway in Eindhoven. a little further on that same stretch of highway they built a tunnel under the highway without closing it.

I live in the Netherlands and they just finished re-surfacing the most important 4 lane highway over a 25km (16 miles) stretch, in about 4 week's time. They staggered the work into split sections 2 lanes wide, to allow traffic to continue with the least amount of hassle.

I believe the Striping Machine can't drive on the fresh Street the Surfaces is too soft it needs a couple of hours! We have amazing Road painting machinery!

Probably the reason the lines are done by "hand" is because the asphalt so fresh, is that line marking trucks are so weighty that it would damage the new surface.

Hi, i'd like to share some background information on road construction as i worked for 25 years at a road construction company in Switzerland. First of all most of the movies you showed are all resurfacing of asphalt roads, especially the top wear level which is only about 3 to 5 inches thick. The asphalt/tarmac has a temperature of 120 to 180 Centigrade (250 to 350 ° F) when put to the floor. There is a certain time to cool down before you can drive on it without deforming/damaging it. So, 24 hours is about the limit (without artificialy cooling with water) for the whole process, including milling off the old surface, suction cleaning, spraying tar as a binder, paving the asphalt, cool down and painting/glueing the road markings... Secondly; This fast procedure works only if the foundation is ok/stable. In Switzerland roads have usually 3 layers - gravel/asphalt bearing layer/asphalt top layer. The gravel gives the road it's stability. If you can't achieve the desired stability you may use rocks or concrete (reinforced). The load bearing asphalt evenly spreads the load from the cars and trucks. Is the gravel layer weak the load bearing asphalt will crack and you will see deformation on the surface. Third; If you have to replace the load bearing asphalt it will take quite a while to cool down this layer as it is approximately 1.5 to 2 feet thick and needs to be cool before you lay the top layer. Fourth; If you have to redo the gravel layer there is mostly another problem lurking, like weak spots in the ground below, like drainage system, sewer pipes, elecrical lines or comm lines to replace or install... Fith; If you use concrete instead of asphalt there is a considerable curing time needed. Sixth; Mostly you have to wait on a state official service to do their job before you can do your's (in a hurry)... As you might see by now there are some reasons why road projects might take so long

Normal motorway construction site: 12 heavy machines and countless construction workers in motion, normal traffic again after 3km. German Autobahn construction site: 20km of narrowed road, an excavator has been standing there motionless for 2 weeks, 3 construction workers drinking coffee and watching the traffic jam.

In Australia we don’t bother fixing the roads most the time, they just put up ‘rough surface’ signs… so they’ll tell you they know about it but they’re not in a rush to fix it!

The photo serves as proof of work, so that you can prove. That the sewer is clean and not blocked

The Vögele machines are produced about 3 miles from where I live. I pass the factory several times a week. The striping by hand may be due to the tarmac being so fresh. The machines are likely too heavy and would demolish the still-fresh tarmac. Btw: A big share of the color used for road/street markings is produced by the company Raschig which is about 5 miles from where I live. The construction of US interstates and the German Autobahn is very different. I once saw a video that explained the differences (e.g. the under-construction of the German Autobahn is about double the size of US interstates). Maintenance is crucial. A regular schedule ("Streckenkontrolle") of the Autobahnmeisterei drives along the Autobahn and looks for cracks or other damage. Small damage is repaired on the spot, and medium or large damage is reported to the maintenance crew and repaired within days. Additionally, every Autobahn is audited every 4 years and decided whether to remove the complete construction (every 20 to 50 years), to only remove the surface (2nd clip) and administer new tarmac or concrete (every 11-16 years), or just put on a new thin layer of tarmac on rough patches to smooth the surface. The first option takes months to years and has to be planned thoroughly. The second option takes weeks to months. The last option is an affair of a few days.

The lines are applied by hand because the asphalt cannot be subjected to any load at that time and must rest until it has achieved full strength.

There is a video where a dutch highway is dug up, a bridge and an underpas is constructed and the highway is resurfaced again within a weekend. Friday night the road was closed and it was completed and open again monday morning 7 am for rush hour..

efficient road construction Germany are 4 words I didn't expect to be combined in one sentence these days.

The way you describe your road construction crews makes it sound like American & New Zealand road crews trained at the same place! You know when those road cones go out they're not just going to be there overnight!

Even though the device is very fast, roads in the USA are reopened much faster. That is an experience I had. Nowhere else in the world are roads closed for as long as in Germany

Hi Ian, I'm not from Germany, but from the NL and live in California for almost 3 decades. I know the difference too. Just imagine if the autobahn wasn't smooth, would the "no speed limit" on certain stretches even be safe? Of course not. You know that too. My Toyota (manual transmission of course) was limited to 200 kph (125 mph). Good times.. This is just a comment to the uneven roads, potholes, etc. that we find in the US and take a long time to be repaired.

We do that in Sweden too. Not this machine. But we put 4 lanes at once. There will be better roads without joints that crack.

Germans gets shit done living close to the German border i see it often and we have alot of Germans on holiday up here in Denmark they are always polite friendly people 😊

We work the same in The Netherlands ( as in Deutschland).

Our guys are better at painting by hand, but if the commenter did more research they would know that there is no need for machines in this phase. For the next painting, machines will be used for efficiency! Otherwise, you can easily compare the quality of German and American highways!

On the "road marking on foot" ... americans are not used to walking a few kilometers ...

The actual construction and construction work is good in Germany, but the bureaucratic civil war before and during the construction work is absolute madness. The planning and approval of larger construction projects sometimes takes up to 25 years! This is also why a large part of the German transport infrastructure is totally outdated, overloaded and in very poor condition. If you want to experience good infrastructure and its amazingly fast construction, then you should look at the Netherlands.

We are so fast at the construction because we have no Speedlimit😂

Here in Finland they just repaved about 10km (6,2 miles) stretch of the local country road near where I live. The pavement work took about two weeks (two layers of asphalt) and the road markings were painted about one week later.

The normal thing I see on the german Autobahn is that one lane is closed. The strip that is closed is about 10km long. After it's closed it takes about 4 days until the first workers appear to walk around, mark everything, then it takes another 2-3 days until the first machines arrive. Then on about 2km they use some kind of angle grinder to open up the asphalt. The next day the next 2km and so on. Then an excavator comes to take everything away for another day. Then it's too wet or too hot or too April or too ... whatever to repair anything. And then after a few weeks somebody gets there and pours in new asphalt. Then everything dries and after about 2 months you have repairs ready on a small portion of the road. And after about a week or so somebody realizes: "Dude where are our beacons and speed limit signs?" "Damn they're still on the A29... you think we should go and get them?" "Nah we're good, we got plenty."

Ian , the motorways in France and Germany are amazing , there like driving on a billiard table . 🇬🇧

The Autobahn bridges in our area are being rebuilt. That will take years. Lucky when two bridges stand next to each other. Then a third one is built next to it. The old bridge in the middle is blown up. The new bridge was pushed into the place of the old one. Then the second old bridge will be blown up and rebuilt. The traffic then always has to squeeze over one bridge until everything is finished.

In my area i see increased work on roads for a couple of years now. Different methods and different times to finish. 1.The easiest level is the road service. They come with a bucket of cold asphalt, stomp it in the hole and thats it. 2. Road inspection by a vehicle with camera and laser and stuff to evaluate the status of the road. Work starts 2 years after. 3. they fix a rectangular part of a road on one or both sides. maybe 2m long maybe 100m long. Digging out the surface for an inch or four and fill it again with road roller. Takes from hours to few days. I have seen a crossroad made new in two days. 4. fixing a ring road of a city. renew the whole surface for lots of heavy traffic and many trucks a day. Can take weeks. 5. bridges on the ring road. took months to finish those. 6. new surface plus new traffic island and bus stops in a village took months. The fixes from point 3 down are very good. driving over does not feel like a change in surface, no kick in the butt whatsoever. Just a change in color.

Seeing this as a german feels like a joke. This video seems like a super rare exception. Public construction projects usually take forever over here. We have an Autobahn project near where I live that are that has been under construction for over 15 years and is not even close to being finished. A lot of that has to do with bureaucracy and insanely long approval processes but also the actual build takes a long time. The reasons for this are plentyful. I'm always impressed when I see actual things happening at raodside contruction sites in foreign countries.

As a german I can tell you that our roads and bridges are in very bad condition and the road works really don´t happen fast. Actually they happen very slow. The danish guys are lighting fast compared to it. They start peeling off the surface of the road in the morning, give it a new foundation until early afternoon and put a new surface on it in the late afternoon of the same day. I guess this is a PR-video of Vögele.

They pave a 3 lane wide highway in one pass . The asphalt upper layer has a porous struction to let water flow to the sides of the road .

On the first video: That's just the resurfacing step. If they redo a strip of the Autobahn, it's common that they dig up/blast the underlying structures that give the road stability, the so-called 'Unterbau'. The rebuilding of this part of the construction is what takes most of the time, as some layers have to rest to get settled evenly (which cannot be done properly on a large scale with machinery as of now).

When I lived in Shenzhen they destroyed an intersection of 4 lanes each way and re-configured it over a weekend and we used it on Monday morning.

The Road laying pert is the last step in Autobahn renovation and it is probably the fastest part of it as shown in the video. The preparation to get to that part is taking months, which is what we in Germany experience and which is not shown in the video. Most Autobahn enhancements like adding a lane take 6 month to 2 years.

I can only agree to what others already said: This is not how we do things usually here in Germany. Most construction takes ages. And since they always hire the cheapest contractor, there is a lot of infrastructure built which does not last. We had a few tunnels built here and shortly after they were finished, they had to be repaired because water was leaking in. We also had a rebuild of a part of the Autobahn and only month after they finished, they had to redo it because the asphalt already started cracking. Oh and they are building a huge bridge in my town. Originally it should get two lanes for each direction. But after they erected the pylons they noticed they are too weak. So they had to cut one lane. And don't get me started on planning. They always build these things incrementally. In my region I know of two major roads that they build to connect to the Autobahn. The first one ends in a field in the middle of nowhere, only connected to a small rural road a few kilometers before the Autobahn. And it is in this state since at least 20 (yes, twenty) years. The other road had been built in two parts, with one part missing in between and one part missing that connects to the Autobahn. The latter has been completed last year and now they have started constructing the missing ~ 10 km in between. The signs say they want to finish 2027.. We'll see... But the whole construction time of this maybe 35 km long road is also at least 15 - 20 years by then. So you see... We in Germany also only cook with water (that's a famous German saying, I guess you get the point).

You didn't even check out the system they have over there of the utilities. They run all the utilities underneath the cycle paths/pavements (sidewalks for you). Then when you get a broken pipe or whatever, they pull up the herringbone blocks of the path and service the utils without needing to shut the road. Check it out - so much better than the old services running underneath the road we that have in this country (UK)

Living in Switzerland and I visit Germany a lot…. I wish they worked like this everywhere 😂

The reason it takes so long in America and Australia is the traffic flow takes priority over construction. Here they have closed the road to traffic

drive with your paint truck over a fresh layer asphalt and you see why it´s made by hand

The construction zones here in Germany take their sweet time… most of the time you don’t even see anybody working. That clip is the final asphalt work, which is most efficient in one go and is rather quick. But usually construction zones take months to years, depending on what to do

well, sometimes even germany can be fast. this was fast done but i believe the planning of this took month.

A few weeks ago the swiss army practiced to land their jets on the autobahn and it was live on TV. It’s paid by taxes, so it has to 😂 they talked a lot about the construction quality of the highway and how easy it was to disassemble 😱

I returned to France at the beginning of the year (I had been living in Canada) and was surprised to see many F150 Raptors and Rangers.

I'm very amazed by this video, because (as far as I known) Germany can easily close off 2 main highways in the same direction for over a year, without worrying about how people are supposed to get to work (or more important how the Dutch are supposed to drag their caravans across Germany using the left lane ;-) ) In the Netherlands we build larger stretches of road during weekend closures. On Fridays you travel on an old road, and on Monday they have resurfaced a 10-mile stretch.

Machines and tools obviously make a big difference but if the people who are using them are slow or lazy and just don't care about working efficiently, even the best machines won't make them work faster. I live in Luxembourg and some time ago, they tried something new... Up until then, the construction companies had X amount of days/weeks to finish a project but every single time, they had delays and blamed it on the weather or broken machines or... you name it. We have a bridge that needed to be worked on and everyone was very nervous because if you can't drive through that bridge, it takes a lot longer to get to the other side and a lot of people use that bridge to to go work. So they had an idea. They told the construction company that they had 6 weeks to finish the project _BUT_ they would get a bonus (money!) for every day they would finish before that dateline. Like I said, up until that project, not a single project was finished on time. In this case, they finished under 5 weeks! And no, they didn't take shortcuts or take risks, they just did their job!

Have a look at the thickness they're placing down, which plays a huge part in the durability of the roads. Not the hot bitumen / asphalt spreading tanker trucks that were shown from the US. I've seen the difference between regular Norwegian roadworks and what was required in the Ormen Lange Gas Terminal. Regular road refurbishing lay down 1-2 inches and new roads 2-3 inches, while the roads on the gas terminal had over 4 inches on top of the very deep gravel foundation they made there, I measured some places close to 15 cm, so almost 6 inches, in some spots. The gas plant roads were made to support 500 tons module and the equipment needed to move them, without requiring maintenance afterward. It looked to me, who isn't trained in roadworks, that they used the final layer to even out every imperfections of the other layers, rather than putting down an agreed upon minimum thickness and as little as possible over that.

In Victoria, Aus there are only two roads that have tolls, because they're technically owned and operated by private companies for a given number of years (50 I think) to cover there costs of maintaining them, the rest of the roads are maintained by the government, at different levels, local roads by councils, major roads by state and the interstate roads jointly between state and federal, usually covered by registration charges and a portion of taxes

always a pleasure Ian. unfortunately south africa also uses the tar machines from voegele & wirtgen. but since it got bought by john deer I was hoping you guys would also get some cool road tech. in south africa it depends on the ruling province, if your roads are good or the municipality is broke but there are many lambo's driving around.

One of the Swiss highways (A13) was washed out after heavy rain last weekend and single lane traffic was possible after less than a week.

11:33 when done by hand they see little defaults that from a truck you wil miss, and it is just a 4 km 🚶‍♂️

In Poland build the 50km highway on 20 year, and when we going to the Kassel in germany, they build the 10km highway on 5 days.

For all ppl here the pavement is really that fast but all the work that takes so much time is done before thats why its takes months even in germany to build roads.

An Autobahn consist of up to six different layers of material. (Asphaltdeckschicht, Asphaltbinderschicht, Asphalttragschicht, Planie, Koffer and Unterbau. How fast they can go depends on how many layers need to be replaced.

in germany most of the parts from the Autobahn financed by goverment an it cost a lot of time to rebuild, but other parts goes to private companies and to fix this streets is so much faster, its a kind of prepayment from these companies-they get the money back from the goverment with a bonus

Oh I remember well the second site here. It was really hot that day and they've had massive probs to get water at the site for cooling the tires and the glue-layer coz the water trucks get stuck in traffic jams on the diversion routes. But they were able to open the new road faster than planned :)

Highway or interstate takes forever in germany too. You often see nobody working but there might be people in trenches besides the road. Making a new surface is not the problem. The time consuming part is the preparation of the ground when it needs a real refurbishment.

dont get too emotional. Germany is the same as any other country. you get what you pay for. It can be done, someone just has to pay it. And usually, the lowest bidder wins and lowest is the slowest.

5:50 re-sealing roads is done everywhere. A few years after the surface is layed, they will tar to seal and chip it for a new wear surface in order to extend the life of the road by preventing water ingress. Usually see them done every 2-5 years depending on the condition (or how rural). Eventually though the surface will start to disintegrate and will need milled and re-paved. 13:30 Probably a Ranger Raptor. If it is an F150, it's been imported by someone (or maybe they are near the American air base)

We see only the laying of the top surface or resurfacing of the road. Whit resurfacing the old top layer is milled off and a new top layer goes on, and this goes quickly in general, they do 1 or 2 kom per night here in the Netherlands, during the day the motorway is fully available again. In Germany they normally work only during day time which means that they have to block off a longer stretch and lead traffic over the narrowed lanes on the other side of the median, the two opposite directional flows separated by barriers. Only when things have subsided or when new roads are built or widened the whole structure is built. First gravel or crushed concrete mixed with sand, a thinner layer pure gravel for drainage, then a concrete or coarse asphalt base, a binder layer and then the top layer. Add to this drainage under the structure and at the roadside, curbs etc. The whole structure, at least what they told in a documentary I have seen, is over 1.2 meter or 4 feet thick in Germany, sub layer, binder and top layer are 30 cm or 1 ft thick. Because the sub structure is so well built only resurfacing has to be done every 10-30 years, depending on traffic density, the sub structure normally lasts much longer. A German Autobahn near me had its sub structure which was built in the 1950s only recently renewed because the road was widened with an additional lane in each direction.

I think the main problem in USA is that the highway was designed for a certain number of cars and especially trucks with certain weight. The traffic now is much higher than when the roads were designed. It would require a whole reconstruction of the highway from base gravel up and horrendous amounts of dollars to do it right. and they dont have that money at hand. So they do continuous work with only few money and the traffic somehow keeps going while with real new construction the whole thing needs to be shut down.

Vögele Asphalt Machines are great. I think they come from Mannheim.

Section of Hwy I drive on in the U.S. , 20 mile stretch that was done in 4 days. When it was initially widened it only took 2-3 weeks to tear up the old one completely and put a new one down.

11:07 they do it by hand because the asphalt isnt in its final hard conditions. its still like "drying" or cooling and cant take high load. so do it by hand on your feet is the best way to do it.

A few years ago they completely rebuilt the main road through the small village nearby in a 60 hour shift from friday afternoon to early monday morning. They removed all the old asphalt, replaced curbs and gutters were needed, laid new asphalt and placed all the road markings. The reason to do it that way in a tiny village is because there is no alternative to this road. It gets used by 12000 cars per day and every alternative road you could think of takes an hour longer. Construction work on a brand new road that bypasses that village started more than a year ago and it isn't even half finished yet. Major projects that slow it down are two new bridged and a large roundabout and they were drowning in mud for several months. Road marking is usually done on foot in Germany. US trucks in Germany: I read in an arictle that there are about 7000 US trucks imported new every year, of which up to 5000 are RAMs. The numbers went straight up during the last few years from less than 3000 in 2019. I can only speculate on the reasons. Maybe it's because large combustion engine vehicles will get illegal in the near future and people who have the money take their last chance on owning one now. It still is a tiny percentage of about 2.8 million cars sold new per year.

Time is money. Germans are well paid, and also excellent engineers and planners. The German nation DEMANDS quality in all things. Result is (generally) efficient, functional, good-quality materials and professional workmanship, with respect for the aesthetics.

no its Winter, Spring, Summer, Autmn & Carnival season🎉

Czechia: Highway D1 - About 350 km. Not finished yet. In construction for about a century. Last 4 km of D4 - Not an easy terrain, but it seems it will be finished in time (6y).

I am from Bavaria, Germany. Just got the federal street next to my house resurfaced. The street was closed for almost four weeks. It's only around 2 miles long. Though they did new rain drainage and crash guards in some parts as well. The street gets renewed every 10 - 15 years.

doing by hand so soon after its been laid is probably to prevent the weight of a truck creating grooves where it drives along the freshly laid tarmac just to put in some lines.

F150s are rare in Germany as they are in the Netherlands, they are used in cases where a Truck is needed, but a car can be afforded. To use them as a normal civilian is often frowned upon as they are not appreciated in the road view.

In France, highway work is generally quick, but of lower quality than before, I found.

If you want to see efficient road construction, go to the Netherlands, those dudes are on another level. Germany makes good roads, but at a cost and it takes a damn long time.

Don't worry about you saying "highway". It's the correct English translation. When we speak English we call it highway too most of the time.

Now, I can tell you about Russian road construction: A truck throws gravel on the soil, a bullozer spreads it out, another truck throws asphalt on top, another bulldozwer spreads it then the steam roller drives on it once or twice. Done. No compaction, no grading, no replacing the soil by gravel, no drainage. Why is that? Because in wintert there is water under the asphalt, it freezes and then cracks the whole street. Next spring you make a new road just the same way.

Now I suggest seeing European animal crossings on highways so that they can safely cross the other side of the road. This also significantly improves the safety of drivers and car passengers by minimizing the risk of an accident

Most of the time our constructions at the street are catastrophically slow. they blocking the road for weeks without anything happens. then they work for two days and things are done. after that, we wait again for two weeks to get the blocking removed. not because people want to do that, just because there are not enough people employed at this positions. "kaputtgespart" (saved money till destruction) is the keyword...

Here in the Netherlands they repair roads in the late evening/night ( if possible ). So they dont get the traffic in they way.

As far as I know: In Germany it's not allowed to spray Bitumen like the US-Trucks did in the Clip. Bitumen is very slippery, there were several (deadly) Accidents in the past Decades, especially with 1-Lane-Vehicles like Motorcycles. If a Road has too large Repair-Spots with Bitumen you can sue the County the Place belongs to and have the Law at your Side in the most Cases...

Just from the title I wondered how bad it is in the USA... As a Dutch guy living in Germany, "Straßenarbeiten" and "DB" trigger me like nothing else.

This is exception. Usual highway construction in Germany is at least 6-18 months. You barely see someone working.

Years ago they completely remade a strip of 50km Autobahn. They closed of the left part, 1.5 months later they started to demolished the right part. After that nothing really happend for 4 months. Then they started to rebuild the right side, which took them around 12 months. Most of the time, when I drove that route, the building site was deserted. After around 1.5 years they finished the right side. The other side took around 2 years. 6 or 7 months after finishing, they had to redo it again, because they forgot to do one of the construction layers... which again took them 3 more years.

Bit of an older video but a good one to show that this sort of speedy roadworks is fairly normal in central EU, look for a video called _"20-5-2016 Timelapse A12 70 meter tunnel in one weekend under highway!!"_ Long story short, a busy highway that needed a tunnel, so they did all prep work they could, even built the tunnel-structure NEXT TO the road, then shoved it in over the weekend so road could be open again monday morning 😁 In typical Dutch fashion they did then spent several years on the bureaucracy of actually tying the tunnel into the roads below hehe 🤷‍♂ Most roadworks in the Netherlands happens at night now (for lower traffic reasons) and most is done in 2-3 days tops. Still not fast enough for most of us but overall we have nothing to complain about hehe.

Common practise is replace the top coat which is known as wearing course once over life span was 15 to 20 yrs but due to heavy haulage & increased traffic this is about 10 yrs. In terminology the road is known as a flexible pavement as it moves under load especially where multiple axels are involved, as if it was rigid more often than not it would break up or crack. The actual top surface coat on heavily trafficked areas is made up of hardstone which has a higher PSV (polished surface value) the principle being the higher PSV the greater adhesion given under braking especially when wet weather is prevalent 60 PSV is the norm round abouts or junctions will tend to be 65PSV the issue going forward is going to be the availability of hardstone quarries.

As a Dane going through Germany on the Autobahn a few times each summer, efficient isn't the word that springs to mind when I think about German road construction. to me it seems like they insists on cramming as much road construction and repairs in, in the 4 or 5 weeks in the summer where people from all parts of Europe drive through Germany, as possible. They tend to block of 1 of 2 lanes for 10 km, and then just work on 100 m of that entire stretch.

As a German i wonder which Germany you looked at .... building sites take AGES in Germany ... well maybe not the construction but the planning and the government does. Every little detail gets talked to death in 15-20 meetings and nothing gets done.

Best roads 1 - Singapore, total road quality score of 9.44/10: Singapore has by far the highest overall road score, as it is the only nation to score higher than 9/10. It has the best road quality, as well as the fewest road traffic deaths, 1.69 per 100,000 people. 2 - Netherlands, total road quality score of 8.62/10: The Netherlands has the second best roads in the world, despite having better roads than Singapore in 2014 they have since been surpassed. The Netherlands ranked in the top ten for all but one of the categories. 3 - Switzerland, total road quality score of 8.58/10: The Swiss roads are only 0.4 points behind the Dutch roads, which edges them into third place in the rankings. Switzerland has some spectacular alpine drives such as the Furka Pass, and thankfully these epic roads are kept in good quality. 4 - Japan, total road quality score of 8.41/10: Japan is the final country to have roads with a higher overall score than 8/10. Japan ranks in the top five countries for road quality, road traffic deaths, and the length of road per 100,000 km2. 5 - Denmark, total road quality score of 7.59/10: The final entry into the top five is Denmark, which achieved a score of 7.59. Denmark has quite low speed-limits for non-motorway rural roads, as they are all set at 80 kmh (51 mph). Also, there are only 2.21 deaths on the road per 100,00 people. worst roads 1 - Kuwait, total road quality score of 1.33/10: The country with the worst quality roads is Kuwait. The road quality score has dropped by more than 20% in five years, it was 4.6 in 2014 then dropped to 3.7 by 2019. Kuwait also has the third highest number of road traffic deaths per 100,000 people, almost 19. 2 - Costa Rica, total road quality score of 2.24/10: There are five fewer people per 100,000 dying on the roads in Costa Rica, but the road quality score is 0.7 lower in the Central American nation than it was in Kuwait. Moreover, the road quality score of 3/10 is the lowest of any country studied. 3 - Georgia, total road quality score of 2.33/10: Georgia sits right at the crossroads of Europe and Asia; the capital city, Tbilisi is within 500 miles of both the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Georgia ranked in the bottom 15 countries for all but one category. 4 - Panama, total road quality score of 2.54/10: Panama borders Costa Rica, they have slightly nicer roads, but they still had a low score of just over 2.5. The road quality in Panama is getting worse, dropping by over 5% from 4.7 to 4.5 in 5 years. There are 13.99 road traffic death rates per 100,000 of the population on Panama’s highways. 5 - New Zealand, total road quality score of 2.93/10: The roads in New Zealand are often mountainous, winding and narrow due to the nature of the spectacular landscape the country is famous for. These roads can be challenging to drive, and they have deteriorated by over 9% in the past five years, in 2014 they scored 5, but this dropped to 4.5 by 2019, one contributing factor could be the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake which destroyed a large section of the state highway 1 (New Zealand’s biggest road).