Last week was not the best for traffic on Germany's high-speed autobahns, as two major tie-ups were caused by totally unexpected events: a flock of orphaned ducks, and a disabled fighter plane.
On Friday, near Kiel in northern Germany, a motorist called in a report of ducklings on the road; she had determined that the ducklings' mother was dead and the babies apparently did not yet understand about traffic. Police shut down the road in both directions, and brought in a fire department crane to retrieve the ducks. They were then delivered to an animal shelter.
Only one day before, a German air force supersonic fighter held up traffic on the A9 autobahn in Bavaria. The plane, seen above, was on its way to a repair base. Its 11-meter wingspan and low profile meant that no one could pass it—and because of the heavy load, the truck pulling it couldn't go faster than about 35-40 miles an hour on a road noted for its impatient high-speed drivers.
The driver stopped at wider points in the road to let others pass, but couldn't go "off-road" to try other routes on the way to the Airbus repair facility in Manching, Bavaria.
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