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Learning German traffic laws the hard way

Last night I was cruising around the city on my moped, happy as could be, the wind chapping my lips and wresting loose the smell of pizza from my jacket, stoking and sating my hunger at the same time. I’m zipping down a two-way street, keeping an eye out for the block-long section ahead where I know pedestrians have the right of way when crossing. It’s late, but who knows, maybe someone will be walking their date home or something, and I don’t want any brains on my headlights. (More realistically, I’d just tap someone’s leg with my front tire and then get punched in the face, fragments of my visor embedded in my eyes. The moped really isn’t all that fast.)

As I’m keeping my daydreaming in check with visions of dirty plastic shards in my eyeballs, I see a police car on pulling up from a sidestreet, getting ready to turn out onto the same road I’m on. I consider braking for him, then realize that would just be suspicious, as well as implying that I’m his bitch, so I glance at my speed and keep going. After I’m past, I check my mirror, and the car behind me had yielded to the police car, all but stopping to wave him out. What a bitch, right? So the cop is behind me now, and I’m almost back to the pizza shop.

Then the lights on the cop car click on. No siren, just lights. I think maybe it’s not about me, but there are no cars ahead of me. No brains on my headlights or shards of plastic in my eyeballs yet, either, so I can’t imagine what I possibly could have done wrong. I start thinking that maybe in Germany cops flip their lights on to say hi, so I’m thinking about turning on all my turn signals and beeping the horn and stuff, to join in on the party. I play it safe, though, and pull over. He does too, right behind me.

I turn off my ride, remove my helmet, and pivot around to face the approaching cop, but without getting off the moped. I thought it best to stay put so he couldn’t gun me down and say I was making a break for it. The conversation went like this.

“Good evening, officer! What seems to be the problem?”
“Well, the problem seems to be that back there was a ‘right-before-left,’ and you didn’t yield to me.”
“Uh, a ‘right-before-left’?”
“Yes. Driver’s license, please.”
“Sure. Right.”
[10 seconds of frantic unzipping and pocket-patting]
“Um, you see, officer, I seem to have left my wallet back at the shop. It was in my jacket when I came to work, and then I changed into these work clothes. My license is back there.”
“You don’t have your driver’s license with you, and yet I just pulled you over while you were driving?”
“That’s correct, officer.”
“Identification, please.”
[Please keep in mind that it’s actually a law that everyone in Germany must carry ID on them at all times. I use my passport for this purpose, and my passport was also still in my jacket pocket back in my locker at the shop.]
“Um… right. You see, that’s kind of with my license, in my jacket.”
“You have no driver’s license and no identification?”
“Correct. But officer, I work just around that corner, that’s where the shop is, I’d be happy to run and pick both up for you and show them to you. It’s not a problem at all, officer.”
“How fast does that thing go?” [gestures to moped]
“Um, 35km/h, sir.” [Fuck, that’s a lie! It actually goes to 40km/h and he might know that! Why, why did you say that, Conor?]
“Oh really? I clocked you at 70 back there when you passed me.”
“What? No, officer, I’m sorry, that is absolutely not possible, the thing just doesn’t go that fast, it only goes so fast, it can’t go faster [my German is failing me]. You can drive it yourself to see, sir.”
“Alright. Well, look. Next time I see one of Joey’s boys out on the road, I’m going to pull them over. And if it’s you, you’re going to have your driver’s license and ID with you, aren’t you?”
“Yes sir!”
“Alright, then. Have a—”
“Excuse me, officer… could you just explain to me one more time what I did wrong back there?”
[looks at me incredulously] “It was a right-before-left! Classic situation! It doesn’t get anymore obvious!”
“Right. Yes, of course. Um, ‘right-before-left’?”
“Do you even have a driver’s license?!” [gets out ticket boot again]
“Yes, of course I do! Well… I have an international driver’s license, you know. I, uh, had to write a test for it. So maybe I—” [more lies]
“Yeah. Sure. Look, just get out of here.”
“Yes, right. Have a good evening, officer.

To be completely clear, I did not get fucked. No ticket, no reporting to my boss (as far as I know), nothing like that. He scared the shit out of me, but that’s about all the harm that was done. But what really had me freaked was this fairy tale traffic law he kept referencing.

After getting off work I told the story to some incredulous friends, and a German explained just as incredulously that I broke the “most basic traffic law in Germany.” I did some research, and it looks like most countries in Europe are using this priority to the right (rechts vor links) system.

Well, now I know. And you do too.

Update: I’ve been asked a thousand times to elaborate on this “right before left” law. What it boils down to is that if you’re driving along a road, and a vehicle pokes its snout out of a sidestreet, you have to yield to that vehicle, effectively slowing down to wave them out. You don’t have a stop sign, and neither do they. Cars pulling out of sidestreets are in my experience fairly cautious, but they do expect to be let out, so you have to be ready to brake.

This is obviously completely antithetical to the way right of way works in the U.S., namely that if you’re already driving, fuck everybody else, they have to wait for a clear spot in the line of traffic driving past them before they can turn out. The “right before left” system seems to add a huge emphasis on paying attention to other drivers on the road, and to changing conditions. It also reinforces an ideological atmosphere of caring for your fellowman, and in that sense, seems completely consistent with a rather socialist society, whereas the “fuck you, I’m driving here, wait your turn” system in the States is a bit more representative capitalist mentality.