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Traffic rules: Autoclub attests that many cyclists are ignorant

2021-08-12T15:53:42.926Z


The car club asked 4,500 cyclists how well they know the traffic rules. The result: "incomplete".


Enlarge image

Cyclists on Munich's Ludwigstrasse

Photo: Frank Leonhardt / DPA

Are cyclists allowed to use one-way streets in the opposite direction?

Yes, thinks about every third participant in an ADAC survey.

In fact, it is not allowed unless it is specially signposted.

The car club asked 37 such questions to 4,500 road users aged 14 and over who cycle at least three times a year. It was about the meaning of street signs, children cycling on the footpath or the use of smartphones. "Many cyclists show a lack of knowledge of the current traffic rules," the car club concludes from the results.

On average, 60 percent of the answers were correct, the rest “incomplete” or “incorrect”. Only one percent knew all or almost all of the answers. Four out of five respondents would have known that cyclists are not allowed to walk in pedestrian zones. But only one in five was aware that cycling children have to use the footpath up to the age of eight, one of the worst values ​​in the knowledge test. "In addition, only a quarter of those surveyed knew about the obligation to use cycle paths as soon as a blue sign was put up," according to the ADAC.

Only a few of the respondents knew that tipsy or drunk cyclists could be held accountable for suspicious traffic behavior from 0.3 per mille and that from 1.6 per mille there was a criminal offense that could result in the withdrawal of a driver's license and the "idiot test" . There are also gaps in knowledge about innovations in the road traffic regulations (StVO), such as the marking of cycle superhighways.

"Ignorance can be dangerous because it increases the risk of conflicts and in the worst case leads to accidents," said ADAC traffic president Gerhard Hillebrand.

This applies to all road users.

Therefore, both drivers and cyclists should regularly find out about new features and brush up on their knowledge of the rules.

In view of the broad scope of the group surveyed by the ADAC, the majority are likely to be drivers at the same time.

Around 75 percent of all accidents in Germany with injuries or deaths involving bicycles and cars are caused by drivers.

426 cyclists were killed in road traffic in 2020.

Drivers with similarly large knowledge gaps

»It is true that many road users do not know important traffic regulations. This affects drivers at least as much as people on wheels, "said Roland Huhn, traffic law expert at the General German Bicycle Club (ADFC). "For example, many motorists do not know that bicycles have to be overtaken with a safety distance of at least 1.50 m." The problems are exacerbated, especially in cities, because ever larger vehicles are on the streets and cyclists are often not given their own, protected space.

In a similar ADAC test for motorists from 2015, the approximately 1000 participants were also only able to "answer around half of the theoretical questions about traffic rules," as the market research institute Ifak announced at the time.

For example, 72 percent did not know the road traffic regulations for the so-called zipper system when the lane narrows from two lanes to one.

And more than 60 percent was not clear how to create an alley for emergency vehicles in a traffic jam.

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Source: spiegel

All tech articles on 2021-08-12

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