West German road rules have required a free lane for rescue vehicles, today called the Rettungsgasse, since 1971. For a long time, however, the rules did not say clearly where to form it on a road with four lanes. Most rescue services already taught a simple rule. Drivers in the far-left lane move to the left, and everyone in the lanes to the right moves to the right. In 2016 this practice was written into the road traffic regulations. Since 14 December 2016, § 11 says that the lane is formed zwischen dem äußerst linken und dem unmittelbar rechts daneben liegenden Fahrstreifen, between the far-left lane and the lane directly to its right. Higher fines followed in October 2017.