Bundesstraße

German Bundesstraßen are labelled with rectangular yellow signs with black numerals, as opposed to the white-on-blue markers of the Autobahn controlled-access highways.

In the German highway system they rank below autobahns, but above the Landesstraßen and Kreisstraßen maintained by the federal states and the districts respectively.

However, a number of Bundesstraßen have been extended as expressways (dual carriageways) (colloquially called "Yellow Autobahns"), which can be compared to motorway-grade A roads in the U.K. like the A1(M).

Most sections of the federal highways are only single carriageway with one lane for each direction and no hard shoulder pull-out area.

Before 2002 there has been a further category of Bundesstraßen with circular yellow sign and black number that shows that this road has no fixed priority (right of way for users).