• nottheengineer@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    Over here in germany, the government almost always picks the contractor who makes the cheapest offer for any given job. That almost always leads to them not finishing the job, so roads stay closed until the government picks a new contractor. And if they don’t pick a new contractor for 6 months, there are no consequences whatsoever.

    • doofer_name@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      Yeah and it’s incredibly frustrating that taking the car is still more attractive over here then taking the train. I wish we were as smart as the Netherlands or Switzerland when it comes to infrastructure and city planning.

      • Marduk73@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I would like to give it a try if it was here in the states and a well put together infrastructure. But i conceal carry and that’s not allowed on public transport.

      • nottheengineer@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        As someone who likes driving and will probably always take the car when it’s an option, I agree. Trains are just so much more efficient than cars, so they’ll reduce congestion a lot.

        And since the people who don’t enjoy driving are usually not the best drivers, some proper public transport will also make the roads safer and less anger-inducing.

    • i_had_name@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      This dispels so many of my assumptions about German efficiency. I’ve always wanted to drive the autobahn. Please tell me that would be enjoyable…

      • nottheengineer@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        Germans are more well-behaved on the road than people from other countries from what I’ve heard, but I personally still complain all the time.

        If you do get a stretch of unrestricted autobahn, it’s nice, but be careful. Since braking distances scale exponentially with speed, you need to be able to spot idiots from very far away.

        I found myself in a few dangerous situations already because people underestimated that aspect.

      • gundog48@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        German government procurement is horrendously inefficient, but it’s because of incredible levels of transparency to try to prevent corruption.

        It means that even the most minute purchases come with lots of beurocracy attached.

        You can look at it almost as its own kind of corruption, that syphons money into the beurocracy, but it does mean that things aren’t happing without people knowing, and that, for an extreme example, when you decide to invade another country isn’t the moment when you discover that you discover that most of your equipment had been sold for vodka money a decade ago!