All about bicycles, electric-assisted bikes, technology and safety in the press

In our daily work as we deal with bicycle safety, technology and user manuals we come across lots of safety risks. The most frequent ones are published in articles of the leading German special-interest magazines TOUR – Europas Rennrad-Magazin Nr. 1, BIKE – Das Mountainbike Magazin Europas Nr. 1 and E-Bike – Das Pedelec-Magazin to make this information important for the sector accessible to a wider public.

For many years now the Eurobike Show Daily accompanying the annual international Eurobike Show has given us the opportunity to publish our perspective on major developments in the cycle industry in full-page articles.

We also speak regularly in independent lectures about all topics relating to bicycle technology and bicycle market. In addition, we are regularly cited by further special-interest magazines or trade journals as well as more and more by radio and television and in their media reports, which shows us that we are completely right with our information. The section NEWS informs you about the latest news from our specialist fields. The reports and publications of this section are listed chronologically or according to topics of interest.

TOUR 02/2014
Reading time 1:10 minutes

Street fight

The climate on German roads is harsh – even outside the cities car drivers and racing cyclists often clash with one another. What is to be done?

The icesheet between civilisation and the Stone Age is thin. Extremely thin, as Dirk Zedler, member of the TOUR team and sworn bicycle expert, can report from his experience in court: "In the past years I’ve experienced several cases, where a bagatelle turned out in the most serious injuries, because car drivers freaked out," states Zedler. One of these had made a group of racing cyclists wilfully bump into his car by a full braking, because he had seen the finger. "After a wrangling due to non-use of a cycle lane another one had used his car to roll over a cyclist from the rear. The most unbelievable things happen there!"

What Zedler experiences in such particular cases could be due to a climate change on the roads which not only concerns cyclists. The general association of Germany’s insurance industry (GDV) assumes that one third of the road deaths is related to aggressive driving. Siegfried Brockmann, head of their accident research, found out that the typical and frequent aggressive offender has a "rather weak personality with inferior self-control who wants to defend his territory". These were a problem throughout society, but with their car they had a dangerous arm in traffic. As a matter of fact these "weak personalities" are also among cyclists – with the difference that their means of transport is clearly less dangerous.

(…)

Author: Jörg Spaniol

 

If you want to read more about this, request the respective issue from Delius-Klasing-Verlag or (in the event the issue is out of stock) send us a stamped self-addressed envelope (DIN A4) and € 3.00 in form of stamps together with a short notice indicating the actual article you are interested in. A copy of the respective article will then be made available to you immediately. 

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