For many in this car-crazy nation, the freedom to hurtle down the famed autobahn at 190 kph or more is an inalienable right.
Germany, one of the world's top car producers, is alone among industrial countries in allowing drivers to decide for themselves how fast to race along the highway. So a proposal this month to impose a speed limit of 72 mph (115 kph) has set off an election-year battle that has some people questioning a basic tenet of German identity.
The traffic-cop-like suggestion from a top opposition leader challenged Germans to pick two popular obsessions — safety and sustainability — over another: a seemingly primal need to use their 500-horsepower engines to catapult themselves across their nation's gently rolling countryside.