On TikTok it is called the "killer intersection": the left turn from Oststeinbeker Weg onto Glinder Strasse in Hamburg-Billstedt, next to the Selgros wholesale market and on the exam routes of the TUEV Hanse test centre. Two lanes turn left at the same time, dashed guide lines lead through the intersection, and whoever arrives on the wrong side has just changed lanes inside the intersection without noticing. The same pattern exists in every German city. Here is the rule behind it, in three cases.
Case 1: Two turning lanes, two target lanes
This is Oststeinbeker Weg. Both lanes turn left, and Glinder Strasse has two lanes in your direction.
The rule is as simple as it is strict: lane to lane. From the left turning lane you arrive in the left lane of the new road, from the right turning lane in the right lane. The dashed guide lines inside the intersection show the way. You follow your line and no other.
What goes wrong: the inner lane swings wide in the curve, the outer lane cuts in. Both end up in the neighbour's lane. To the examiner that is an unsignalled lane change, and at a busy junction it takes the space of the car next to you. Remember: inner stays inner, outer stays outer.
The decision is made before the intersection. If you realise inside the intersection that you need the other lane, you still finish your line and change afterwards, with mirror, signal and shoulder check.
Case 2: One turning lane, two target lanes
More common than you think: you turn left from a single turning lane, but the new road has two lanes in your direction. Which one do you take?
The law does not name the target lane literally. Inside towns, cars may choose freely between lanes on roads with several lanes per direction (section 7 paragraph 3 StVO). There is still a clear exam expectation, and it follows from the keep-right rule (section 2 StVO): without a marking that says otherwise, you turn into the right lane of the new road. If you need the left one afterwards, you change after the turn, signalled and with a shoulder check.
Two exceptions that fix the target lane:
- Guide lines in the intersection leading from your lane into a specific lane. Then the line applies.
- Arrows or a second turning lane that make the assignment unambiguous.
What examiners mark as faults: pulling diagonally straight into the left lane, or arriving between the two lanes on the lane marking. Both mean "no lane chosen".
Case 3: Multi-lane right turns
Two right-turn lanes work like case 1, lane to lane. Added to that is a trap that only exists on the right: both turning lanes cross the cycle path of the new road. The shoulder check to the right immediately before turning in therefore applies from the left turning lane too, even though it feels wrong at first. Doing it only from the right lane is exactly where exams end.
The order the examiner remembers
- Before the intersection: choose the turning lane, position, signal.
- At the stop line: check oncoming traffic and pedestrians; for right turns, shoulder check to the right.
- Inside the intersection: follow your own guide line, no corrections.
- In the new road: arrive cleanly in one lane, not on the line.
- Afterwards: change lanes only with mirror, signal, shoulder check.
Practise it before it costs money
Exactly this decision, which lane the car must arrive in, is what you can train in DriveDE: four intersections, each with guide lines, each with a wrong answer that tells you the rule on the spot. The lesson "Turning left" holds the trainer, the lesson "Turning right" the scenario for the multi-lane right turn with the shoulder check from the left lane.
And if you practise in Hamburg: drive Glinder Strasse once with intent. After that the killer intersection is just two lines to follow.