In Munich, the police are testing year-round use of a bicycle squadron. The findings so far: The officers are sometimes faster than their colleagues in the car and are well received by the people when they are not handing out traffic tickets. Only the jackets are too cold.
Sometimes even with a Porsche you can’t beat an e-bike. When the pedelec says “POLIZEI” in capital letters and a uniformed policeman sits on it, looks down sternly and asks them to pull over, the Porsche driver prefers to stay where he is. Even if he draws a lot of looks at a busy intersection like the one at Sendlinger Tor, which oscillate between curious, amused and gloating. Aljoscha Zapf pulled the Porsche waiting at the traffic light out of circulation because it was driving within the Mittlerer Ring without a green environmental sticker. That’s 128 euros, “that didn’t seem to have particularly impressed the man,” says Zapf after he issued the ticket and the Porsche purred away.