[claudius]

I’m cycling to work in Munich at the moment. There’s a little piece (~800m) of one-way street with traffic lights at both ends. Due to the layout of the initial traffic lights, cyclists usually enter that street before traffic, as they have to obey their special bike-traffic-light.

On that street, cars attempt and do pass by me every day, despite there definitely not being enough room for a bike and a car to move next to each other – resulting in them passing by at distances of as little as 1m! Did I mention the speed limit of 30 km/h there and that I’m usually doing exactly that?

There’s also at least once a day some idiot who thinks he can turn right over the bike lane without checking for actual bikes on that lane and another idiot who considers the bike lane a very convenient parking spot. There are also usually two to three cases where a driver attempting to turn into the main street from the right (without right of way) stops on the bike lane and then gets upset if one attempts to drive around them.

The idea that German drivers are aware or tolerant of bikes is absolutely ridiculous – though of course they may be more aware and tolerant than Australian bikers, but I don’t know that (:

Unfortunately, policing these traffic violations seems to be perfectly uncommon here.

Of course, most of these wouldn’t be issues if we treated bikes like cars with the exact same rights and obligations as cars.

[ThrustVectoring]

IMO, if you're going fast enough and there isn't room for cars to pass, you should be riding down the center of the lane. Especially if there's hazards in the bike lane.

Don't let people do stuff that compromises your safety.

[ptaipale]

> Of course, most of these wouldn’t be issues if we treated bikes like cars with the exact same rights and obligations as cars.

Hmm, I suppose you did not mean this, but I think that mandating a bike rider's license, registration, insurance and annual tax would not help that much to remove problems.

Overall, I don't see how bikes could have the exact same rights and obligations as cars, although overall both are vehicles and should be treated as vehicles, equally. Still, you can't ride a bike on an Autobahn, and neither can you drive a tractor. You may or may not be allowed to ride bike on a road that is dedicated to buses, although you may be allowed to ride a bike there. Etc, etc. Bikes cannot and shouldn't have *exact' same rights and obligations as cars.

[claudius]

> Hmm, I suppose you did not mean this, but I think that mandating a bike rider's license, registration, insurance and annual tax would not help that much to remove problems.

If that means I can use inner-city roads the same ways cars can use them and that I’m not forced onto shoddy bike lanes the width of a towel, I’m happy to get registered, pay insurance etc. I somewhat expect bike insurance to be less expensive than car insurance on account of you being able to do less damage with a bike; similarly, taxes should be lower as even overland bike paths are much cheaper than anything built for cars. Overall, I’m not unhappy about the idea, though.

> Overall, I don't see how bikes could have the exact same rights and obligations as cars, although overall both are vehicles and should be treated as vehicles, equally. Still, you can't ride a bike on an Autobahn, and neither can you drive a tractor. You may or may not be allowed to ride bike on a road that is dedicated to buses, although you may be allowed to ride a bike there. Etc, etc. Bikes cannot and shouldn't have *exact' same rights and obligations as cars.

Of course there was some hyperbole there – I don’t expect to be allowed to drive on a highway, but not because I am a cyclist but because I can’t meet some minimum speed (i.e. the same rules that mean tractors can’t drive there either). However, I don’t see why I can’t drive on an inner-city road among cars which are at most allowed to drive 50 km/h and instead have to stick to a tiny bike lane next to a series of parked cars.

Regarding bus lanes, I am actually not too fond of them being open to cyclists: A single bus being slowed down annoys substantially more people than even a couple cars being slowed down and passing by a stopped bus is a major annoyance and safety issue. There’s some idea that you can promote cycling by giving out these perks (elsewhere, hybrids or electric cars are allowed to use them, too), but overall that shouldn’t be necessary in a healthy climate.

[pascalo]

> The idea that German drivers are aware or tolerant of bikes is absolutely ridiculous – though of course they may be more aware and tolerant than Australian bikers, but I don’t know that (:

Trust me, they are.

[yitchelle]

I have heard that Munich drivers are crappy, joking :-)

I commute about 18Km into Cologne, and the traffic I come across have been pretty good. I even had the local bus follow me down a one lane street without much of a horn or flashing lights for about 1 km. In general, they treat me and the other bike riders like another car.

I have also commuted in other parts of Cologne, but also had good behaviour from the drivers.