<a title="LEO Results for "drängeln"" href="http://dict.leo.org/?search=dr%E4ngeln&searchLoc=0&relink=on&spellToler=standard&sectHdr=on&tableBorder=1&cmpType=relaxed&lang=en">drängeln: to jostle, to press, to push, to swarm. None of which anyone wants to experience at 230 km/h from a Mercedes CL 600 riding on your tail.

But that's exactly what a 21-year-old woman and her 2-year-old daughter experienced on the A5 near Karlsruhe last month. The Mercedes accelerated to within 0.5 m of their rear bumper, forcing them off the road and into a tree, killing them both: The driver then fled the scene of the accident. A massive manhunt resulted in a warrant today against a test driver employed by Daimler Chrysler.

We've experienced this fear, even in Mama's BMW, which can easily keep pace with almost any other vehicle on the road. On a winter day a few years ago on an extremely icy autobahn, we were nearly forced off the road by a black Audi. A month later, we received a letter from the Autobahn police. They had been observing the Audi, and asked if we remembered the incident and whether we had felt threatened. We certainly did remember, and we had felt threatened.

We heard nothing further. But in the land of freie Fahrt für freie Bürger, you enter the left lane at your own peril.