cooking_liquid

While on paper the allowed speed is 80 km/h, in fact it is 89 which is the hard-wired technical max speed of most trucks. Additionally, driving 89 is not prosecuted. In a capitalist world, a trucking company whose trucks sticked to 80 km/h would vanish very soon. Therefore 89 km/h is the standard speed. If a driver decides to go slower than that, trucks will try to pass them, period. Additionally, there is the "Richtgeschwindigkeit" for cars of 130 km/h in Germany as you may be aware of.

That being said, I do not endorse tailgating or speeding in any way. I just wanted to add another perspective.

There are a lot of reasons for automated driving and most of them have something to do with human behaviour. Sorry for trying to put the statement about tailgating into perspective.

Former truck driver from germany here. Sure, you shouldn't tailgate as a truck driver. His point is still valid. There are very few good reasons (read exceptionally bad conditions) for going slower than a truck's max speed. 90% of the time, people are just not paying attention. From the truck drivers perspective, this is nearly coercion, especially where overtaking is forbidden. I once tried to overtake a car on a highway in southern Germany which went like 80 km/h. I drove a 60t mobile crane, limited to 89 km/h (like most of the trucks in Europe are). When she realised that, she accelerated and I had to stop the maneuver. Then she fell back to 80 km/h again. Rinse and repeat for two times. Guess what I did then. Hint: There was some serious honking involved, too.

Also please keep in mind there is a grey area between tailgating and starting a passing maneuver and at least in my country it is tolerated to reduce the safety distance in order to start overtaking.