Abstract
Germany is currently in a process of restructuring its whole system of highway design guidelines. This process is described with special attention to freeways. The kinematic derivation of design parameters is loosing importance. As a new principle the design class is introduced. This means that streets and roads should become self-explaining to suggest to the road user his correct and desired behavior. This principle is applied for urban streets, rural highways, and freeways. Besides these rather basic ideas, the paper also gives an overview about the whole set of design standards and guidelines in Germany.