The people of Munich are so concerned about their rules that they don’t shy away from pointing them out to anyone who deviates from them. Let’s take crossing streets: if you walk within range of traffic lights outside of the green period, you can be assured of withering looks and harsh judgments from all sides. The fact that there is no car to be seen for miles does not play a role in the transfer evaluation. The biggest faux pas is committed by those who run across the street in a hurry after switching to red and are in sight of young road users. You are then bombarded with words, category rude.
I will never forget an elderly lady yelling at me while walking when I crossed a completely deserted street when I was red on a Sunday night. She was beside herself, as if I’d flattened her dog with a steamroller. Crossing the street at Rot is just as much a part of the road traffic regulations in Uganda as it is in Munich. Wherever I come from, the unwritten rule applies: If you don’t make sure that it’s safe to cross the road, you won’t stay healthy for long. In Munich, on the other hand, breaking the rules at traffic lights can cost a few euros, including a driver’s license. The encounter with the old lady left a lasting impression on me. The decisive factor, however, was a very young lady who came into my life three years ago.
Anyone who has a child has to develop completely new rules for themselves. And it is not uncommon for people to use an existing set of rules. Explain to a child that under certain circumstances it may be possible to cross a red light. Good luck with it. Or better: you shouldn’t do that. My little Taliah already knows exactly when to cross the street and when not. She always says “Mummy, red light, stop” and when the green light comes on she says, “Mummy, green light, go”. For this reason, I can understand the anger and frustration of other parents who approached me when I ignored the color theory of the Munich traffic lights in front of their children.
The few moments remain when I’m on the road without my Thalia. Sometimes it is annoying that the traffic light phases are so absurd for pedestrians and cyclists. Sometimes they take an extremely long time to turn green, especially when you run to a bus. And it is not uncommon for the green phase to just extend halfway through the street. Halfway through, the cars honk again from the side. This is surely one reason why some are tempted to break the traffic light rule. I would say it can be worked on. For my part, I hold back on red. Once I even put my hand in front of Taliah’s face because someone crossed red in front of her eyes. My daughter and I are now doing it this way: We go over to Green – and at the same time check for ourselves whether the road is clear. We call it our Bavarian-African combination rule.