Bicycles are central to Berliners’ world view. They’re about as central as the evident right of every Berliner to make sure that everybody follows the rules – and to inform them forcefully when they’re not doing so. This is what happens when principles collide with (solid) reality…
I am biking in leafy, bourgeois Charlottenburg. In front of me in the bike lane is a be-suited, middle-aged businessman, with a briefcase strapped to the rear carrier of his bike, calmly making his way past the east side of the Schloss. A white van pulls out of a leafy side street some way ahead of him front and pauses, waiting for a space in the mid-morning traffic. The van is blocking the bike lane but, as the generous Berlin pavement is about five metres wide in Luisenplatz, the driver clearly feels that he is not breaching the peace. But not so the business man.
Twenty yards away from the obstruction and approaching rapidly, the businessman begins to shout loudly, and to gesticulate. “Get out of the way! Bicycles before cars! You are blocking the way! Move your van out of my way immediately!” He shouts in a tone of rising hysteria. His tirade becomes louder and more confrontational as he nears the van, but the unfortunate driver is still waiting for an opportunity to nose his way into the traffic.
Rather than deviate from his designated course by going round the back of the van, the gentleman rides his bike up to the van at full speed and then crashes into the driver’s door. He dismounts, throws his bike angrily to the ground and begins to kick the front wheel of the van, now quite beside himself with rage. He screams at the top of his voice the whole time, “Get out of my way! I have the right to pass! You must not do this!! Bicycles before cars! This is unacceptable!”
I watch, intrigued by this confrontation between theory and practice. The cyclist continues to bellow and kick. Suddenly, the driver finds an opportunity to join the traffic flow and does so. Then the choleric businessman picks his bike up, regains his equilibrium and calmly rides off. Peace is restored to Charlottenburg, at least for the moment. But who knows what dangers await just around the corner on Wilmersdorfer Straße…
Continue to Nuria Robinson’s A Bike Will Come Along or take a look at the Staal’s Berlin Letters.
