Spectrum: The 58th German Traffic Court Day begins today in Goslar. For three days, the annual conference is all about road traffic law. One topic here is the increasingly rough climate in road traffic, as described by road users. Tomorrow the Traffic Court will discuss measures to counter increasing aggression on the streets.
Working group 3 of the 58th German Traffic Court Day in Goslar will look into the question of whether aggressiveness on the street is increasing. It was only in September 2019 that the Allensbach Institute for Public Opinion published a survey in which 90% of those surveyed between the ages of 30 and 59 described increasing aggressiveness in road traffic. The cycling club ADFC also sees the car being used more and more frequently as a means of exerting pressure on cyclists. ADFC Federal Managing Director Burkhard Stork says: “An aggressive traffic climate is poison for cycling. As a result, people prefer to hole up in strongholds of cars instead of happily and frequently getting on their bikes, as is politically desirable. Consideration campaigns are not enough. We need infrastructure that protects and sanctions that really hurt!”.
The ADFC criticizes the common practice of the municipalities of sending bike traffic without physical protection onto the road together with fast car and heavy goods traffic. According to the cycling club, it is known from studies that cyclists are regularly overtaken too closely by motor vehicles, which puts them in stress and danger. ADFC members would also report that they were deliberately pushed aside by motorists on the road, horned at or coerced by roaring engines. In this regard, Burkhard Stork calls for more consistent prosecution of dangerous behavior, more police squadrons on bicycles and municipal building programs for physically protected cycle paths.
The topic of conversation should certainly be that the increase in aggression in road traffic or deterioration in the traffic climate anchored in the perception of road users could not be confirmed so far, according to the official notification of the German Traffic Court Day, due to a lack of suitable objective indicators. As part of a BASt monitoring, the first results should even show that the traffic climate for the whole of Germany is rated neither particularly positively nor particularly negatively. As part of working group 3, the topic will be examined tomorrow and psychological, legal and infrastructural approaches will be discussed.
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