I am zooming down Autobahn Number Nine, halfway between Berlin and Munich.The section I am on has no speed limit.
The way the traffic is flashing past, it looks more like a motor racing circuit than a motorway.
Germans love life in the fast lane. Each year, motorists clock up around 200bn km (124bn miles) here on the autobahns.
Some drivers seem to spend half their lives on them.
But sometimes even Germans feel the need to get off the motorways and take a break. And not just to fill up with petrol or find a place to eat.
At Exit 39 on Autobahn 9, the sound of bells mixes with the rumble of the highway. There is a sign: Autobahnkirche (Motorway Church).
St Christopher's is one of more than 30 official motorway churches in Germany. They are like service stations for the soul.
Inside the church, I meet a doctor called Juerg who has stopped by for a few minutes' prayer.
"Life is too fast," Juerg tells me. "I want to feel the quietness again."
'Rest for the soul'
There are many businessmen here, too.
"I drive very much, 75,000km a year," says Arthur, the head of a textile company. "And if there is time I stop. To have a talk with God."
Wolfgang Fritz, who runs a construction company, tells me why he has come: "In my life I have to fight all day.
"In the construction business, we fight about everything. But I also have to fight to stay a human being."
Some of the motorway churches are Catholic churches, some are Protestant. But they are open to people of all faiths, to all drivers searching for a few minutes' peace.
"We have a rest for our bodies, we have a rest for our cars, but there's no rest for the soul," says Guenther Lehner of the Bruderhilfe Academy, the organisation which helps to co-ordinate Germany's motorway churches.
"When you go in a restaurant during a rest stop it's always busy, it's always loud. But the highway church is silent. This is very important for the drivers to calm down with their soul and to drive afterwards in a better way."
Many of those who visit the autobahn churches write down their cares and concerns in the comments book.
"Once there was one man," recalls Father Peter Klamt, the priest at St Christopher's.
"He wanted to kill himself and he wrote this in the visitors' book. Other people saw this, called the police and the police found him far away. Afterwards, he sent a letter to me that he was happy not to be killed."
Family tragedy
Back on to the autobahn. This time the A3, Germany's east-west highway. And at Exit 76 I find one of Germany's biggest motorway services. It is owned by Manuela Strohofer and her family.
"We have three gas stations, a garage, a hotel, a swimming pool, three restaurants - and our church, of course!" reveals Manuela.
The Strohofers decided to build their motorway church after Manuela's younger brother Anton was killed in a road accident.
"Our church has a motto," says Manuela.
"It's from Matthew chapter 11; verse 28 where Jesus says 'Come to me, all of you. You're tired from carrying heavy loads and I will give you rest'."
In Manuela's church, which backs on to the motel, there is a little water fountain and peaceful music to help people relax. Lorry driver Wolfgang Schuck is there lighting a candle.
"It's a stressful job driving trucks," Wolfgang tells me.
"I'm on the road three, four days a week. You've got to find time to relax. So I try to come to this church once a month to help find inner peace. To escape the craziness of daily life."
In the Middle Ages, travellers and pilgrims had wayside chapels where they could stop and pray.
Today Germans have motorway churches: rest stops for body and soul.
SIC: BBC