Any student of economics knows that incentives drive behavior, and government subsidies have a real impact on the way people live their lives. That’s why Germany is filled with windmills, whereas we are just getting started with ramping up wind power. In America we use the tax code to subsidize home ownership, Germans use the tax code to subsidize traffic jams.
In Germany you can write off about $0.45 for every half mile you drive over 12 miles in your daily commute from your taxes. Germany pays you to cause congestion. Every radio station in Germany announces the success of their program each morning by listing how many kilometers long the Stau is on each street.
The worst part of this program is that it makes you susceptible on trips to the evil Autobahn toilet empire, even on trips as short as a few hundred miles. Since the highways are clogged with trucks and commuters, your cross country drive is going to be slow and nerve-racking. In short, you will need to take a break, and you will likely pause at a roadside rest stop. Here you will find some mediocre food and the only large cups of soda in all of Germany. At first you will excitedly fill your half liter mug to the brim with our delicious and refreshing export of joy, but soon you will realize exactly why these people “generously” provided you with this right-sized coke container, to make you fall victim to their pay-per-pee entrapment.
You know that this half liter is going to have to come back out, but you never know when you might be stuck in hours of the Stau. You simply can’t afford to risk skipping the bathroom before proceeding, and this is where their sinister plan takes hold.
You have to pay $0.75 to use the bathroom.
To make you feel like you haven’t been completely scammed, the automated bathroom entry systems provides you with a coupon to be redeemed at a rest stop. Unfortunately, you will have already bought all the overpriced items you wanted before you needed the bathroom, rendering the coupon useless to you at this point. Once you make it back home you will throw this coupon into the pile of coupons you had previously gathered, but always seem to forget to grab before the journey. Once you finally remember to bring your stash along with you for the trip and attempt to pay for your trucker-schnitzel and pop with them, the cashier will inform you that they have expired, and the evil procedure starts anew.
On the bright side though, you know that the bathroom will be clean and have some soothing rain forest jungle sounds to ease your road rage.
deutsche Übersetzung für Astrid ein/ausblenden
Astrid,
Hi, na?
Die Deutschen subventionieren Verkehrsstaus
Jeder Wirtschaftsstudent weiß, dass finanzielle Anreize das Verhalten beeinflussen, und Subventionen der Regierung haben reale Auswirkungen auf die Art, wie die Menschen ihr Leben gestalten. Das ist der Grund, warum Deutschland voll ist mit Windmühlen, wohingegen wir erst damit anfangen, Windenergie aufzustocken. In Amerika benutzen wir die Abgabenordnung, um Hauseigentum zu subventionieren, die Deutschen benutzen die Abgabenordnung, um Verkehrsstaus zu subventionieren.
In Deutschland können Sie ungefähr 0.45 $ Steuern abschreiben, für jede halbe Meile, die Sie mehr als 12 Meilen beim täglichen Pendeln gefahren sind. Deutschland bezahlt Sie dafür, einen Stau zu verursachen. Jeder Radiosender in Deutschland gibt den Erfolg seines Programms morgens bekannt, indem sie auflisten, wie viele Kilometer lang der Stau auf jeder Straße ist.
Der schlimmste Teil dieses Programmes ist, dass es Sie auch empfänglich macht für Fahrten zum bösen Autobahn-Toiletten-Imperium, sogar auf Fahrten die nur wenige hundert Meilen kurz sind. Da die Autobahn verstopft sein wird mit LKWs und Pendlern, wird Ihre Fahrt quer durch das Land langsam und nervenaufreibend sein. Kurzum, Sie werden eine Pause brauchen, und Sie werden wahrscheinlich an einer Autobahnraststätte anhalten. Hier finden Sie durchschnittliches Essen und die einzigen grossen Becher mit Erfrischungsgetränken überhaupt in Deutschland. Zuerst werden Sie hocherfreut den halb-Liter-Becher bis zur Kante füllen mit unserem köstlichen und erfrischenden Export der Freude, aber schon bald werden Sie realisieren, warum diese Leute Sie “großzügigerweise” mit diesem Becher in korrekter Größe versorgt haben; um Sie zum Opfer der zahlen-pro-pinkeln-Falle zu machen.
Sie wissen, dass dieser halbe Liter auch wieder raus muss, aber sie wissen nie, wann Sie vielleicht stundenlang im Stau feststecken. Sie können sich das Risiko einfach nicht erlauben, den Toilettengang zu überspringen, bevor Sie weiterfahren, und das ist wo ihr unheimlicher Plan anfängt zu greifen.
Sie müssen 0.75$ bezahlen, um die Toilette zu benutzen.
Um Ihnen nicht das Gefühl zu geben, dass Sie komplett abgezockt wurden, versorgt das automatische Toiletten Eingangssystem Sie mit einem Coupon, der in einer Raststätte eingelöst werden kann. Bedauerlicherweise werden Sie schon all die überteuerten Dinge gekauft haben, die Sie wollten, bevor Sie die Toilette brauchten, was den Coupon zu dieser Zeit wertlos für Sie macht. Sobald Sie wieder zu Hause sind, werden Sie diesen Coupon auf den Stapel von Coupons werfen, den Sie vorher schon angesammelt haben, aber immer mitzunehmen vergessen, bevor die Reise losgeht. Wenn Sie dann endlich daran denken, den Stapel auf die Fahrt mitzunehmen, und versuchen, damit für Ihr Trucker-Schnitzel zu bezahlen, wird der Kassierer Sie darüber informieren, dass sie abgelaufen sind und die böse Prozedur beginnt von Neuem.
Auf der positiven Seite wissen Sie, dass die Toilette sauber sein wird und dass Sie beruhigende Regenwaldgeräusche hören werden, um Ihre Verkehrswut zu lindern.
Sorry wegen der Verspätung, gel.
Liebe Grüsse,
John
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September 2nd, 2008 at 5:12 am
Well just keep the coupons somewhere in the car that’s the trick. They last a whole year and you can redeem them in the whole country. And hey - who knows - if you pee a lot and manage those pee-coupons correctly you might be able to buy a whole roadside rest stop with a couple of gallons of pee and your coupons. At least that’s my plan.
P.S.: Or let me put it this way. With two average cross-country trips and average peeing you can at least buy a trucker-schnitzel with the coupons.
P.P.S.: And yes - it sucks.
September 2nd, 2008 at 5:55 am
Actually, you can show them the Sanifair-Coupons and your Kassenzettel afterwards and they will give you the money. You just have to ask. They will probably even speak English with you
September 2nd, 2008 at 6:52 am
I’ve really got no problem paying 50ct for an automatically cleaned - that means really clean and everytime clean - toilet. Okay, just for peeing, 50ct might be a bit expensive, but still, whats 50ct for a really clean toilet?
In the times before that system, even staff-cleaned toilets at roadside rest stops haven’t been clean most of the time, because you can’t clean after every asshole that did everything but hitting the hole.
September 2nd, 2008 at 7:19 am
I normaly stop, because i have to pee first! So stopping, getting out of the car, getting into the Rest Stop, looking confused for the toilet sign, running downstairs really having to pee NOW but coming to a sudden stop by these barriers which will only let you through with change in your pocket damn, and afterwards having a 50ct coupon but not finding anything which is worth only 50ct and i really need now, so i buy some crap candy bar and leave that place. So my Tip: use a Autohof, they don’t have that coupon System!
September 2nd, 2008 at 10:34 am
I mostly stop at one of these golden ‘M’ arches. Because I know the toilets will be (mostly) clean and mostly you don’t have that coupon thing for using their toilets. I stumbled only once over that coupon stuff.
End of Story: the coupin expired one year later because I don’t travel that frequently and didn’t get to a stop where I could redeem that coupon.
September 2nd, 2008 at 11:16 am
I really find your blog entertaining, but some of the recent ones were a bit outdated. “In Germany you can write off about $0.45 for every half mile you drive over 12 miles in your daily commute from your taxes.” for example, it was abolished two years ago (it was called the “Pendlerpauschale”). Same with the studying for free and the soft drink choices in various supermarkets. I like your writing style, but also think that such satirical columns need to get the main facts straight to be crisp… does that make any sense?
Do you still live in D, if I may ask? If not, maybe some friend back here could check if what you wrote is still up-to-date so we readers can really facepalm thinking “Yeees, it acutually IS like this”, instead of, “Good read, but would have been even better two years ago.”
But everything is changing so quickly, after the next big vote, the “Pendlerpauschale” might be there again. Or we have to pay road tolls.
September 2nd, 2008 at 11:51 am
Yvonne, you’re right, as it says in the FAQ, I don’t live in Germany anymore so my memories are fading and my experiences are outdated. And I don’t take the time to do background research. Maybe I will start.
September 2nd, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Don’t let that keep you from writing. I bet a bunch of questions, if posted here, would quickly be answered by all your German readers obviously willing to give on information anyway.
I hope the above comment was received as constructive criticism, not nagging.
September 2nd, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Please don’t listen to what anyone (cough Yvonne cough) says. No one cares if your blog is out of date, not 100% accurate. And you even said yourself that your blog is aimed at being 85% accurate and I am ok with that. 63.7% of percentages are made up anyways. I come to your blog because my blog is incredibly boring because my Mom reads it and I need some laughs to make my expat existence in Germany somewhat sane. Keep posting and continue to be lazy….no background research!!!
If you want accuracy, go read the hundreds of boring blogs (mine included) out there about experiences as an American in Germany.
September 2nd, 2008 at 2:51 pm
@ yvonne the new “pendlerpauschale is at this junction exactly like john says it is, it used to be payed door to door for the whole of your commute.
in the face off rising gas prices and all the “dienstwagenprivilegien” there is much talk of reintroducing it the way it was. well looming elections in 2009 might have something to do with it too, come to think of it …
other than that it is of course the vast bureaucratic conspiracy it seems to be, we are germans after all.
September 2nd, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Just jump the silly turnstile like every good German does.
September 2nd, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Well, there is always a tree in reach. Let’s doit doggy style.
September 2nd, 2008 at 6:50 pm
hi,mausischatz!!!!!!!!!!
Was ist los??? wo sind meine übersetzungen???? du weißt doch das ich erst ab 16.9. meinen englischkurs beginne( leider gab es bei der vhs kein amerrikanisch) also bitte hab mitleid,im moment brauche ich alles was mich zum lachen bringt und fröhlich macht,weil, wie du weißt sind es nur noch 10 tage. sei gedrückt und geknuddelt bussi astrid
September 2nd, 2008 at 7:28 pm
Dann muss mausischatz sich aber ranhalten…und das auch noch die naechsten 3-5 jahre,denn um auf das englisch level des blogs einschliesslich kommentare zu kommen,braucht es viele,viele vhs kurse,lol.
Mixxy
September 2nd, 2008 at 9:00 pm
The pee coupons are actually a very good thing. I don’t know if you’ve seen a autobahn toilet before these things were introduced (late 90s I think) but if you have you’d wish you hadn’t. They were all, without exception, completely horrible. Just being never one was enough to make you vomit, actually using it was completly out of the question.
September 3rd, 2008 at 10:48 am
I am baffled now!
I left Germany in 1999,no pee coupons then..but I remember very well that one had to stick 50 pfennig in the doorslot before it would let one could enter.
So if toilets were so horrible before pee coupons,what was the justification then? Toiletpaper expenses?
Mixxy
September 3rd, 2008 at 11:13 am
We never pay for those coupons!
Three solutions for the take-a-leak problem: remember where the McDonald’s restaurants are on your usual route and pee there for free, go at the many toilets found at smaller pull-outs, or if the smell is too bad as it usually is, head out to the bushes like half already seem to anyway.
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Isn’t the whole ‘find a bush’thing a little bit outdated and gross?
Such advice usually comes from a male species.
Mixxy
September 3rd, 2008 at 1:16 pm
@ Ian
the MacD stop would be a MacPee, AFAIK, and if you do it telling an employee that you intend to buy a burger after going to the facilities, that would be a “MacPee with Lies” (actually heard that from my sister in Germany)
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:41 pm
I have never encountered something like this, only Klofrauen. (Toilet women?)
September 4th, 2008 at 10:16 am
@Mixxy,
how sexist of you!
(that’s a smiley, in case it doesn’t show.)
In Germany you learn to be an equal opportunity pisser. Our daughter isn’t afraid to take a leak in the bushes and neither should anyone else. All you need is a little privacy.
@Brigitte - funny! Have to remember the Burger with Lies - but why bother? They’re usually too busy to bother with anyone else anyway. Just open the door, go and leave again. Do it all the time.
September 4th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
@ Ian..I really don’t have a problem with equal opportunity peeing.
But let’s face it,for a man it is too easy to find a tree,while women have whole different agenda of peeing,they have to strip down to their underwear and having their booty exposed to the fresh german air.
There is a solution.
http://www.globalmilitarysupplies.co.uk/inc/sdetail/6763
I don’t even have to leave the car with this device!
Mixxy
September 4th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Ummm… I hope you don’t toss them into the back seat when you’re done.
September 5th, 2008 at 8:40 am
“the only large cups of soda in all of Germany” - ever been to a German cinema?
September 5th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
The Sani-whatever at Köln HBF charges 0,60 EUR for a piss (guys only), and a whopping 1,10 EUR for a poop (pee included). Girls have to pay a no-limit-evacuation flatrate of 1,10 EUR no matter what.
September 6th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
@bernie he is riffing on the common complaint by americans traveling or otherwise pestering our beautiful country that serving-sizes round here aren’t like back home in the soda department …
there should be disclaimer under every post in this blog ” the sentiments & notions expressed here are not necessarily those of the author.”
i fall for it too on occasion .
September 13th, 2008 at 10:06 am
It’s a mistake to think that the financial support of driving to the work place causes traffic holdup. The traffic would be there anyway, even without support! And, just for your information, public transportation is supported, too.
September 19th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
Well just keep the coupons somewhere in the car that’s the trick.
Well not really . My mother has about 10 coupons in her car by now and on our last trip we stopped at a (the last one out there ? ) non sanifair restroom
October 18th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
While I realize I have to spend the 50c on something I would have otherwise not bought, I am so very grateful for the amazingly clean toilets that I don’t mind. At least you get a coupon in return, I have before had to pay 50c (at BK for example) without getting anything back.
October 29th, 2008 at 11:49 am
Paying for peeing ist stupid - True.
But:
I´d rather be forced to pay for that relief than for checking my tire pressure.
Which is absolutely common in the US.
0,75$ for AIR.
Without wanting to make it a competition - but this is even more stupid and dangerous as hell.
And it might be one of the many reasons, why on US highways it´s pretty hard to find a few feet of road not clustered with the remains of many flat tires.
BTW:
Love your blog, interesting POV!
November 2nd, 2008 at 11:15 pm
“In America we use the tax code to subsidize home ownership,”
Ist das tatsächlich so? :o)
Wenn ich mir die aktuelle Krise der Weltwirtschaft ansehe, die durch die Mentalität der Amerikaner ausgelöst wurde alles auf Pump zu kaufen, dann scheint das ja prima funktioniert zu haben.
Ich meine hier ausdrücklich weniger die Immobilien-Deals (die man wohl überall selten in Bar bezahlt) sondern eher die Kreditkarten-Schlamperei.
Aber: Nothing for ungood.
Zumindest ist Euer Mr. President bald Geschichte. Die größte Pfeife noch vor Richard Nixon. Unglaublich, wie man in nur 8 Jahren ein Land und dessen Ansehen so schädigen kann.
Gruß Stefan
November 16th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
I realize that it is hard to understand for an American that Germany considers a 12 miles trip to work a long way, in America that would hardly get you to a shopping mall and back. Wait till you have Germany’s gas prices, drill baby drill!
December 10th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Nicht zu vergessen die Werbeflut, die man beim Wasserlassen über sich ergehen lassen muss …
December 12th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Now that I read this, I just have to share my experience on peeing at the Autobahn for real survivers with all the other readers of this brilliant weblog:
Next time you feel you have to relief yourself during a long trip on the Autobahn, you go to the shop at first and buy a drink (just in case you’re thirsty), next you hit the restroom and then you go to the shop again and trade your coupon for cigarettes. Why particularly these evil sticks? Because they are the only item available for the same price you have to pay everywhere else.
If you follow my little survival-guide, you won’t feel scammed next time you’ve visited the only place on earth more expensive than palm island in Dubai.
March 11th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
Ok, the Sanifair system is a very odd invention. But what is even more weird, is the reason why we have it. It is because there was a pee-fee mafia in Germany a couple of years ago. Some gangs devided the toilets of highway rest stops among them and collected the money the cleaning ladies got. That’s why some people came up with the Coupon system. That’s no joke!
June 30th, 2009 at 9:33 am
The tax deduction you get for driving to work is not a subsidy. As a matter of principle you are not required to pay income tax for expenses that are purely work-related, for which your daily commute certainly qualifies.
Just as every company needs to buy some things, then sells some things, then is only taxed for the difference (profit), the same principle holds true for every private person earning money for a living.
The government *tried* to paint it as a subsidy and reduce it substantially, but our highest court declared that law as unconstitutional. That doesn’t mean that the government couldn’t remove that “subsidy”, if it wanted to but it would take a major rework of the tax code to do it in a fair and therefore constitutional way.