So how do you cross a street in Germany when you reach a crossroad?

11 comments

1. Well, yes – do all streets have lights or zebra crossings in your country?

   You can walk over, but obviously you should check for oncoming traffic, you should go as quickly as you are able, and you should go at a right angle to the way the street is running.

2. Look left, look right. No cars? Walk (or run if you prefer)

3. With common sense.

4. I call a taxi.

5. That’s is something you learn in the kindergarten, Kita in Germany.
   You look right, you look left, and if it is free, you cross the street.

   And a second time in the primary school, also with your bycicle.

   The craziest thing is, nowadays you see this behavior also on house, domestic cats, they also assimilated this behavior, from the humans, to stay a life, they look left and right and only than they cross the street.

6. Out of interest, what country are you from, where crossing the street even in the absence of zebra/traffic lights is forbidden. Never heard of such a high density of zebra stripes.

7. No jay-walking laws here, except if you cross a pedestrian light.

8. Like [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX_5cSd9Kjs)?

9. Yep, just make sure there’s no oncoming vehicles and off you go!

   Fun fact, in a nearby town there’s this four-way junction where there’s signals for each crossing (so four signals). A lot of times all four signals turn green at the same time, so the people just go whichever way they want: say I’m at the lower left part and need to go to the upper right part, I just walk cross because all of them are green for people to cross.

10. Being a residential street, it probably has a 30km/h speed limit. You can cross at whatever point. It used to be that streets were not exclusively for cars but we were otherwise educated.

    Edit: “educated” should be read “brainwashed”

11. A general rule is in StVO §9:

    If a car turns left or right, it must be careful about pedestrians crossing the way it’s turning into, and must wait if necessary.

    In reality, on a road, it’s more like the car waits when the pedestrian is already on the road.

    And cars driving straight ahead have higher priority, so the pedestrian has to wait.

    Finally, just check if there’s no car from either direction when you are about to cross the street. If a car is turning into your road, it may stop, or it may not.