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Comment by bildung | Hacker News Reader

This is no either-or situation. In Germany a cyclist has to used a bike lane if available and else uses the road. Kids <= 8 are allowed to cycle on the pedestrian paths.

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This is not true. In Germany bike lanes are only required to be used when there is a sign saying so (and when they usable and safe, which you cannot expect, sadly). By default bike lanes are optional.

I am curious, how do motorists react when you ride on a regular road with an optional bike lane adjacent to it? Because where I live, in Spain, they have built such "optional" lanes and when I ride adjacent to them I get a lot of harassment, which I didn't get prior to their construction in such places. So it seems the politicians build them and the motorists do the dirty job.

Some drivers indeed use the existence of such lanes as extra fuel for their harassment, which sucks: Very often these lanes are objectively dangerous for cyclists because they are way easier to be "overlooked" at intersections.

While driving culture generally is terrible in Germany, in my opinion, with people driving way to aggressively, the situation may be improving gradually. The idea of having to keep some distance when passing cyclists seems to have reached some drivers. (From court rulings 1.5 meters is the absolute minimum)

I stand corrected, thanks :)

So wherever there is a bike lane he lost his right to use the road, it works just as designed.

Nope I was wrong on that part, see rerx' reply above

My point is that even when they are "optional" they are not. At least that's my experience riding in Spain, where they have built optional bike lanes but you get plenty of harassment from idiots who think you have to use. This happens in places where there was no prior harassment whatsoever.

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