Franconian Beer Message Board
Bamberg & Franken |
| Posted by Nick B. on 2007-06-10 00:50:25 |
| Thanks, Gunnar, both for this article, as well as for caring. You're right, of course, biking drunk is dangerous. And you're right, most people would need to be really blasted to get into real trouble on a bike. The article, while going into the extreme case of a tanker truck swerving to avoid a drunk cyclist, tipping over, and setting a fully occupied café in flames as a result...he's got a very good point: When you're not used to biking --and biking after a few Seidla-- it can be a bad thing. Moderation, of course, is the key. His point about 3 Seidla is good IMO: a Mass and a Halbe are about my limit. Last summer, I was admittedly more loose with my limits. One good thing about biking the countryside here is that one can usually avoid roads that have regular auto traffic, owing to the number of smaller roads and paths. I'm a little evangelical about getting people to bike around here, in part because nothing makes me queasier when out on the road than imagining some foreign beer tourist tooling along in their rental car, coming up behind my Frau and I and running us off the road because their supposedly "under-the-limit" BAC diminished their reflexes JUST enough to not notice the bikes on the narrow road in front of them, let alone their unfamiliarity with seeing bicycles on roadways at all. Getting my drivers license here was what really set me on the 0% BAC campaign though: learning about the subtle differences between driving here and where I grew up driving (US). When you couple the fact that traffic flows just a bit differently than your life-long ingrained reflexes expect with jet-lag and then a bit of alcohol reaction time diminishment and judgement impairment...it's just *stupid* to drive with any amount of alcohol in your system at all. Other details in the article, as I understand them, are correct: The .05 and .08 BAC limits for auto driving don't apply to bicyclists, rather .16, which is quite drunk for most people. However, get in an accident on a bike or in a car, and the limit is *.03*! I believe BAC tests are automatic for everyone involved in accidents, as well. So, let's say you've had that one Seidla each at Huppendorf and Geisfeld, and back in Bamberg you get bumped by some Grandpa who failed to interpret which kind of traffic circle he was navigating, and thought HE had the right of way, when it was actually the other way around (you have to understand the difference in signage at the two different kinds of traffic circles). The Polizei come, measure your BAC, and off you go, to jail. And it wasn't even your fault! Never mind those pesky random DUI Polizei checkpoints--unconstitutional in the US (?), but..... Anyway, that's enough for now. |