Some sidewalks are also open to cyclists. In the hustle and bustle, however, not everything always runs smoothly, in the worst case accidents happen and courts have to clarify liability.
If you walk on a sidewalk that is also approved for cyclists, you don’t have to keep looking around for approaching cyclists.
If an accident occurs, the cyclist is usually liable, explains the Traffic Law Working Group of the German Lawyers’ Association (DAV). She refers to a decision by the district court of Erfurt (Az.: 5 C 1402/19).
The case concerned an accident on a sidewalk that was also open to cyclists with an additional sign. However, there were neither structurally nor color-coded areas of their own.
A nine-year-old boy had come out of a doorway onto the sidewalk. There, a cyclist could no longer brake and caught the child. Among other things, he suffered a traumatic brain injury. The cyclist was also injured after flying over the handlebars while braking.
Both parties met again in court. A compensation of 1000 euros was demanded for the child: The cause of the accident was driving too fast and too close to the house entrance. The defendant replied that the child should not have left the house without looking around. In addition, it literally ran out onto the sidewalk and into the cyclist.
However, the court saw only the cyclist as responsible. On a shared path for pedestrians and cyclists, the latter would have a greater duty of care. Pedestrians should be able to use the entire width of a common path without having to constantly look around. In addition, cyclists must be able to stop within the manageable distance at any time if the traffic situation becomes unclear.
According to the court, particular consideration must be given to the careless and the elderly. In addition, it is easy to expect that people would come out of entrances or vehicles could drive out of exits onto the sidewalk.
According to the court, the cyclist was traveling at 12 to 14 km/h too fast for the circumstances on site, and he was also driving too close to the exits of the property. The fact that he had gone over the handlebars is also an indication of the speed being too high.
The court could not even determine that the boy was partly to blame: the child did not run, but at most hopped onto the sidewalk, if at all. The cyclist’s falling direction forward – and not to the side – shows that the child did not run over the cyclist. However, the court found compensation for the boy in the amount of 500 euros to be appropriate.
(This article was first published on Friday, July 08, 2022.)
