In a pilot project, the police are testing the use of bicycle lanes in Munich and Nuremberg. The cycling officials should now not only be equipped for bad weather, but also be better recognizable.
Low temperatures and light drizzle – the conditions on Friday morning would have been ideal for showing the new bad-weather clothing of the Bavarian police cycling squadron in an endurance test. But because Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU) did not want to leave his officials out in the rain despite lined softshell jackets and water-repellent short coats, he moved the planned presentation from the courtyard garden to the covered courtyard of his ministry. Where it is a bit more dim than outdoors, another new piece of equipment from the bike police also came into its own: they now drive up with blue lights!
For a year now, the Bavarian police have been testing the use of bicycle lanes in major cities such as Munich and Nuremberg for their suitability for everyday use. The pilot project, which is scheduled to run until the end of March 2024, is about the year-round deployment of civil servants who not only occasionally, but mainly travel by pedelec, i.e. with an e-bike. According to Herrmann, initial experience has shown that Radl police officers are difficult to identify as such at dusk or in the dark – despite their neon-yellow, reflective helmets and jackets. This is one of the reasons why the bikes have now been retrofitted with blue lights, two at the front on the handlebars, one at the back as a reflector. “It was important to us to create a better perception,” says Munich’s police chief Thomas Hampel.
For the time being, ten police bikes have been equipped with blue lights, there are to be twenty in total. “If it proves successful, we will decide to what extent this will be expanded,” says Herrmann. The Bavarian police currently have a total of 600 service bikes; 800 officers are equipped with appropriate uniforms. However, only a few people get on their bikes full-time during the probationary period: in Munich there are nine men and women, in Nuremberg six.
According to Interior Minister Herrmann, the blue light bikes should be tested primarily during searches or to accompany meetings. Munich’s chief of police, Hampel, generally sees great potential in bicycle mobility – because of “agility, speed and environmental friendliness”. In some situations, the wheels also have an advantage over a patrol car: in traffic-calmed zones, for example, or in parks. The acceptance of the police cyclists among the population is high, as could be seen last summer during the patrols through the Olympic Park as part of the European Championships.
It is not planned to equip the police bikes with sirens. The usual bicycle bell didn’t make a big sound when Joachim Herrmann tried it out on Friday morning. But a whistle is part of the equipment for that.