Essen.
Seven injured cyclists in three years: A painted sign is intended to defuse the Essen intersection. Pedestrians are now even more confused.
The Kurt-Schumacher-Bridge/Henglerstraße intersection in Essen-Steele is heavily frequented – by cars, pedestrians and cyclists. The latter have suffered the most in the past three years. When they made a free right turn, they were first overlooked by drivers on the zebra crossing and then caught. Now the intersection has been defused by the city painting a “give way” sign on the pavement on the center island – right in front of the zebra crossing.
Traffic sign at Essen’s problem intersection applies to cyclists
Pedestrians who want to cross the street first walk over the sign and are sometimes confused. Are they supposed to give way to traffic at a crosswalk of all places? Not at all. The traffic sign applies to traffic and is therefore aimed at cyclists. According to Section 26, it is permitted for cyclists to cross the zebra crossing, but then they do not have priority over traffic crossing the street. From a purely legal point of view, you either have to get off and push – then you are considered a pedestrian again, or wait and give cars the right of way.
Because this rule was repeatedly disregarded, according to the police, there have been six slightly injured and one seriously injured cyclist at this point in the past three years and the accident commission recommended defusing the intersection. Cyclists who have crossed the intersection at the traffic lights have long seen the triangular red give way sign in front of the zebra crossing on the back of a street sign and now also painted on the ground as a pictogram.
“Grant way sign” in front of zebra crossings causes malice
The implementation caused criticism and malice on the social network Twitter. A user writes: “Drivers are now stopping because they assume pedestrians have the right of way on the crosswalk and pedestrians are stopping because there is this sign on the ground. Is eating a way of slowing down?” Another writes: “That’s completely stupid in the face of a zebra crossing and its function.”
Wolfgang Packmohr, former police director and chairman of the Essen group of foot eV, the lobby association for pedestrians, says: “Self-explanatory traffic space is certainly different. If you really wanted to promote cycling in Essen, there would have been other solutions.” The Radentscheid Essen team also commented: “This is Essen’s solution for dangerous free turns to the right: cyclists receive additional priority notices. That won’t change anything about the danger – apart from making it easier to assign blame to the cyclist after an accident.” The bicycle lobby has been demanding for years that the free right turns be replaced by traffic lights. Motorized traffic flows more smoothly without these, but there are always accidents at such intersections in Essen and other cities.
Facebook user complains about reckless cyclists at Essen’s problem intersection
Facebook users confirm for the intersection at the Kurt Schumacher Bridge that cyclists coming from Freisenbruch are particularly hard to see for motorists. One user writes, “The intersection isn’t the problem, it’s the reckless cyclists who just keep pounding the crosswalks over and over again.” He suggests putting up barriers in front of the crosswalks that would force cyclists to get off and on push.
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