Revealed: the secret plans behind the distance regulation
There is no reference in the modest German legal overview - the Civil Code contains only 2385 paragraphs and is only one of 2200 laws, among which regulations and ordinances rank with a number of about 150,000, if EU regulations are not counted; the Basic Law, with 220 articles, actually deserves no mention - to the distance that would have to be kept in case of a risk of contagion.
2 metres in the United States
Where does this figure come from, which was recorded in the USA and converted to 78 2/3 inches 
, since it is much easier for US Americans to estimate high two-digit numbers and fractions with the naked eye than the metric system? No one has mentioned that the conversion results in a deviation of 18 2/3 mm or about 0.0735 inch. The government doesn't issue folding rules, so what are the Yanks supposed to do? Coming up with a sensible solution on their own is out of the question; in any case, the standards set by their European friends must be maintained in order to keep infections to a minimum. 2 steps or 6 feet would correspond to the principle of natural human measurements, but calculating in inches (1 inch equals 0.0277778 steps (yard)) is much more plausible, because simply rounding off to yard (1 yd = 0.9144 m) would be even stranger.
Only the road traffic regulations give a vague hint
For this reason, research has been done and finally it has become clear where this seemingly out of the air order to keep a distance comes from. Since the invention of the automobile for individual transport to move goods and people overland from one place to another, the road traffic regulations have been refined more and more to be regularly ignored. Everyone knows that if they want to overtake a vehicle in front, they have to announce their intention with the direction indicator and then, depending on the construction of the road, even consider whether the operation is possible at all. Preferably, this is done before initiating the manoeuvre. At that very moment, another vehicle appears in the rearview mirror that was still under construction when the overtaking manoeuvre was started, so it must be in a much greater hurry.
Although the volume of traffic has decreased, this is the crux of the matter.
As previously only vehicles were measured and their distance from each other was regulated when stationary and while driving, the legislator has recognised that this must be extended to include people not surrounded by metal, glass and plastic. On motorways, a vehicle is defined as following too closely only when, at a speed of 250 km/h, the left rear bumper of the vehicle in front shows visible abrasion from the right front bumper of the overtaking vehicle. At first it was assumed that the calculations could not be applied to pedestrians, but a hitherto undiscovered sketch by Leonardo da Vinci came to the aid of the wise men of the West.
According to this sketch, the height of a body is equal to the height of the arms stretched out to the sides up to the fingers. So, in order to be able to estimate the distance between vehicles in road traffic with the naked eye, it is no longer necessary to be able to read the advertising text of the number plate holder in the rear-view mirror, which is already impossible because one's own rear end obscures the view, but to lower the window, and only if the passenger side can be touched in the brief moment of passing is an administrative offence conceivable.
Completely crazy pragmatists apply this principle mentally in the supermarket because the markings stuck to the floor with barrier tape behind the checkout are more than a metre away from their own eyes and therefore no longer recognisable. They imagine that they can touch the fingers of the person standing in front of them with an outstretched arm if the person points his or her arms backwards. Since most people also breathe, speak and spit backwards, this is obvious and instead they take a car length distance like on the motorway.