Rettungsgasse

Rettungsgasse has become a standard term in the German language, which is officially known as frei Gasse in the German Road Traffic Act, and since 2012 also as rescue alley. This means the route to be taken by road users for emergency services in the event of a traffic jam or traffic flowing at walking speed on multi-lane carriageways. It must be formed with a sufficient width whenever there is a traffic jam – even for large fire engines, recovery vehicles or, depending on the weather, for wider road service vehicles, for example with a snow plow – regardless of whether emergency services are approaching or not. The emergency lane is to be formed (in the DACH countries) with at least two lanes for one direction between the lane furthest to the left and the lane immediately to the right.