Aachen Evening News (picked up somewhere on our recent
travels ...
The twins headed up North with our eldest to catch the North Sea ferry whilst we headed for Calais/Dover to drop off some other relatives in the South.). The area is a haven for cyclists by the way.. all the major cycling routes across Germany converge here.
Anyway per the paper .. a cycling commuter called Helga finds herself being "intimidated by drivers turning into the multi-storey by the local Galeria-Kaufhof shopping mall.
Helga in the Aachener Zeitung wrote:
Drivers just do not seem to notice me
Sound familiar?
The German CTC equivalent (Allgemeine Deutsche Farhrrad-Club - ADFC) seems to agree and has done something about it
(ADAC is the AA version
)
They have laid down a red carpet at the entrance and exit to the car park
ADFC spokeswoman wrote:
We want to bring people's attention to the potential danger. Because of the road layout, cyclists approach this entrance and exit to the car park from a blind bend to reach the very same cycle path which the ADFC have highlighted ( i.e. with their red carpet
) . Motorists just cannot see the cyclists approaching and the situation then becomes dangerous.
How different from the British version though - who seem to see "anti-cycling and blame the drivers for everything.
(Just to show not mistranslated this .. though really should have got Wildy to type and post - this is the German bit of what I just typed above.
Quote:
Laut Verkehrplanung sollen Radfahrer, die aus der Schildstrasse kommen, die Parkhausein-und ausfahrt in grossen Bogen umfahren. Genau diesen Weg verdeutlicht der vom Verein verlegte Radweg. Viele Autofahrer rechen nicht mit Radfahrern, so dass schnell gefahrliche Situationen entstehen.
Vocab so that you can see how the translation applies back to the original
I learned German when I married Wildy .. a case of "needs must"
Not translated literally word for word - but tweeked so that the same gist but in a more fluid English as would no doubt appear in a UK paper.
Verkehr =traffic
Radfahrer - cyclist
Einfahrt /ausfahrt - entrance/exit
Bogen - bend
genau - exactly
verdeutlichen - clarify /highlight
verlegen - (here "to lay")
Autofahrer - driver
#
gefahrlich - dangerous.
[...]
The paper has a photo showing cyclists riding along this red carpet. I wonder if the drivers will notice the carpet which they laid to symbolise the danger to the driver entering and exiting the car park.
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