lucid in deutschland » bicycle

Busted

heza — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 09:58:05 +0000

On the radio, I heard about a man who road his bike after dark through the Englisher Garten after visiting the Oktoberfest. The police started following him and ordered him to get off his bike. He had had a few Maß in him and was worried about getting ticketed, loosing his license or thrown in jail–so he hightailed it.

His get-away was quickly foiled by the Eisbach, a cold and fast moving stream that traverses through the park. To the cops amazement, they watched the man abandon his bike and jump into the freezing water. When the cops caught up to him, they found him shivering on the bank and suffering from a bad bout of hypothermia.

The cops only wanted to site him for riding without bike lights. Naturally they gave the paranoid guy some first-aid and a breathalyser test. It turned out his blood alcohol concentration was below 0.16%, which is the limit for people on bicycles. Had he driven a car, he had enough alcohol in him to loose his license for a year. Lucky for him but he nearly lost his life for a measly 10 Euro fine!

So in case you find yourself contemplating evading the cops to meet freezing death, take a look at cycling fines you’ll face in Munich. In general, you are better off loosing a few bills in your wallet than saying bye-bye to your existence.

[Apparently I have violated a lot of bike laws in Germany. If I was caught one time with each of the offenses I've made in the last 5 years, my fines would be a minimum of 370 Euro. uh oh.]

As a cyclist, you disregard the Rechtsfahrgebot (meaning, the right lane/side must be used when it is free) within the designated road surface marking.
Fine: 10 Euro,
15 Euro – if you caused an obstruction to others,
20 Euro – if you endangered yourself or others,
25 Euro – if you caused an accident.

You don’t cycle on the marked designated bike lane.
Fine: 10 Euro,
20 Euro – if you caused an obstruction to others,
25 Euro – if you endangered yourself or others,
30 Euro – if you caused an accident.

You ride your bike on the bike lane or on the street in the wrong direction.
Fine: 15 Euro,
20 Euro – if you caused an obstruction to others,
25 Euro – if you endangered yourself or others,
30 Euro – if you caused an accident.

You ride side-by-side and hinder other cyclists.
Fine: — ,
15 Euro – if you caused an obstruction to others,
20 Euro – if you endangered yourself or others,
25 Euro – if you caused an accident.

You make a turn into another street without signaling.
Fine: 10 Euro,
30 Euro – if you endangered yourself or others,
35 Euro – if you caused an accident.

You have lights on your bike but you aren’t using them even though it is too dark to see or be seen.
Fine: 10 Euro,
15 Euro – if you endangered yourself or others,
35 Euro – if you caused an accident.

You are riding a one-seater bike and allow another person over 7-years old to hitch a ride.
Fine: 5 Euro.

You are riding a bike with a child without the proper safety equipment.
Fine: 5 Euro.

You are riding a bicycle without proper or with a broken bike light(s).
Fine: 10 Euro,
20 Euro – if you endangered yourself or others,
25 Euro – if you caused an accident.

You are using a mobile telephone while riding your bike.
Fine: 25 Euro.

You are riding your bike with headphones / mp3 player in your ears.
Fine: 10 Euro.

You are riding your bike with no hands or you are being pulled by a moving vehicle while on your bike.
Fine: 5 Euro.

You disregard when the police ask you to pull over.
Fine: 25 Euro.

As cyclist, you ignore the red light pedestrian cross signals even though these signals apply to cyclists as well.
Fine: 45 Euro and 1 point on your driver’s license.

As cyclist, you ignore the red light traffic signal.
Fine: 45 Euro and 1 point on your driver’s license,
100 Euro – if you endangered yourself or others,
120 Euro – if you caused an accident.

As cyclist, you ignore the red light traffic signal and the light has been red for over 1 second.
Fine: 100 Euro and 1 point on your driver’s license,
160 Euro – if you endangered yourself or others,
180 Euro – if you caused an accident.

You are riding in a pedestrian zone where signs forbid moving vehicles.
Fine: 10 Euro,
15 Euro – if you caused an obstruction to others,
20 Euro – if you endangered yourself or others,
25 Euro – if you caused an accident.

You are riding in a pedestrian zone that allows for certain vehicles but you are pedaling faster than walking speed.
Fine: 15 Euro.

You are riding in a pedestrian zone that allows for certain vehicles but you endanger a pedestrian.
Fine: 20 Euro.

You are riding in a pedestrian zone where signs say this is not allowed and you endanger a pedestrian.
Fine: 25 Euro.

You are riding in a prohibited traffic zone.
Fine: 10 Euro,
15 Euro – if you caused an obstruction to others,
20 Euro – if you endangered yourself or others,
25 Euro – if you caused an accident.

As cyclist, you ignore the “do-not-enter, one-way” sign.
Fine: 15 Euro,
20 Euro – if you caused an obstruction to others,
25 Euro – if you endangered yourself or others,
30 Euro – if you caused an accident.

If your bike doesn’t have 1) a bell, 2) functioning brakes 3) lights and reflectors (front white and rear red) 4) two yellow spoke reflectors per tire or tires with reflector rings
Fine: 10 Euro for each.

If you own a racing bike (less than 11 kg) and you aren’t in a race, it also needs lights and reflectors or pay 10 Euro.
source: Landeshauptstadt München KVR, 6. April 2010

this little piggy went to Vinschgau

heza — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:30:29 +0000

Last week we headed back to Vinschgau for more mountain biking adventures. We managed to work up an appetite and the above photo collage provides a few highlights. We tried to be better prepared and bought the regional food guide, Genießen in Südtirol: Gastronomieführer Vinschgau. It helped a bit especially for discovering the hidden Biergarten nestled in the woods in Latsch and scoring a sweet bowl of fresh picked strawberries in Martell.

The opening hours of most restaurants are a lot of times hit and miss for crazies like us who spend hours pedaling up a mountain just for the thrill to speed downhill in 20 minutes. Often times we arrived in town around 3pm to discover kitchens were closed until dinner. Lunch sometimes included a heaping bowl of gelato. Since I’m not a big souvenir collector bought the cookbook, Südtiroler Leibgerichte by Hanna Perwanger, hopefully this Oma’s mad cooking skills will rub off on me.

And we so dined…

Gasthaus Krone
Jausenstation Bierkeller
Pension Gasthof Zufritt

saved a pedestrian lately?

heza — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 19:53:00 +0000

Oh wise, determined lady crossing Impler Street. You were looking on the ground and probably complaining to yourself about the heat. It’s easy to forget about the bike lane you so nonchalantly approached. Little did you know how close you were to being squashed like a, eh… nevermind.

Normally, I’m usually less forgiving to your kind. I don’t own a bell (I think those who have one, go overboard), so I sing out a yoohoo to break a would-be victim’s trance. But I was preoccupied myself this time as to the whereabouts of my BWL assignment. And had I not been riding on a late Monday morning perhaps too fast for those who haven’t had their 10 o’clock Krönung and Semelbrot, I could have reacted in way that saved us both a scare.

It didn’t help that there was a fairly thick Bordstein (curb) separating the bike lane from the outer sidewalk either. So I did what I could instinctively, hit the breaks, attempted to steer away from the oblivious peds, but the curb and bike had other plans so I went a tumbling. Honestly, the only thing that filled my head as my shoulder ate the sidewalk was, ‘great they see my underwear!

The shaken-up, old lady with the tacky white shirt and gold embroidery kept saying sorry and it was her fault for not looking. She even offered her phone number. But I wasn’t interested in a Kaffee und Kuchen affair. I was relieved that I had no broken bones and she didn’t need a hip replacement.

It’s always good to roll..

Bike Tour: between Munich to Lake Starnberg

heza — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 19:02:53 +0000

The city is beautiful but the country-side in the spring is just breathtaking. I can’t believe that we can take our bikes out of the dark, damp basement and then ride off into this in just minutes. We didn’t make the entire loop, which we made up on the way, since we had never ventured farther than Kloster Schäftlarn. But we made to Biergartens, one at Lake Starnberg, (btw the Strandhouse Starnberg serves very good thin crust pizza) and one at Schäftlarn.

After the journey I looked it up on Google Maps and was amazed at the distance we covered and just the view I was in the middle of. I wanted to reconstruct the way but I lost the path twice so the effort seemed pointless. We made this trip in the middle of May 2008.