Saturday, March 20, 2010

Not only are 4 leaf clover's green....



but so is the German Polizei.

Not only is March 17th the day that Christian Muehlenberg (matthias's dad) was born, but also a commonly known holiday as "st. patrick's day." We were in Krefeld at the Muehlenberg's house celebrating and I went back to Duesseldorf with Katie (Flo's girlfriend) to pick up Matthias after work. The entire way to Duesseldorf (about 20 min) I was telling Katie how driving here is way more relaxed since there are no speed limits on the Autobahn and how I never see the Polizei pulling people over. About 10 min later, I notice a Polizei car behind me following me and didn't think much of it...then all of a sudden I see the red "Polizei, STOP" sign flashing. Naturally, my palms start sweating and I franticly ask Katie what I'm supposed to do, (even in the U.S I've never been pulled over). I pull over to the side and Katie instructs me not to speak German, I figured too, its always better to play the "dumb American." I hand her my driver's license and she asks if I've been drinking, I say "No" and she asks if she can give me an Breathalyzer test. I agreed, then attempted to do the Breathalyzer, and it took me two time to get it right (gotta play up to my dumb american role) and successfully passed. She handed all of my stuff and told me to have a nice night.

Germans have an absolute zero tolerance policy for alcohol and driving. Legally you are only allowed to have one beer and are still O.K to drive. Anything after there you are pretty much screwed! They don't need a reason to pull you over, and are allowed to give you a Breathalyzer and a pee test at any time with out any reason. It was very nervr-recking but now I can say I survived the German Polizei!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Das ist aber ein komisches Bild an erster Stelle.
Grüße Dad