A bit of googling shows that "advances in vehicular safety" have helped bring the road deaths down in Germany, so you now have a better chance of surviving. Maybe you "just lose your legs" or be "wheelchair bound" for the rest of your life but at least you weren't in deaths column, just another of the 400,000 plus injured on German roads every year - seems they still have a problem on German roads (yes the injuries also dropped in the figures but 400,000 is still an awful lot). A huge number - even after recent massive increased penalties (euro dollars) and point losses (geez, doesn't this sound all too familiar). The autobahn is not the be all and end all for the driving elite as it seems only about 40% of it is open speed (providing your car meets all the requirements) - with tunnels, curves, repairs etc, etc dropping the speeds down to where you may as well push it. The figures I found suggest 10% of all fatalities are on the autobahn. Marked and unmarked police vehicles regularly patrol the autobahn along with very high tech cameras (sounding all too familiar?) but why, if this is the playground of the driving elite? someone is telling porkys. The Germans sure think there is a problem.
I would say what a load of "bollocks" - speeding does contribute to the carnage.
http://octane.ie/news/article.php?id=517
PeterM.