To my eternal (so far) embarrassment, I got breathalyzed by the German police on my bike on Friday night. My friend Michi and I had ridden the wrong way up a one-way street (he was on the sidewalk but I was on the street because I am terrified of jumping the curb) when a police car drove by, turned on the flashing lights, backed up 20 metres, turned on the loudspeaker, and said "Bleib stehen" - "Stay where you are." I almost died of embarrassment then and there. The officers got out of the car and came over for a chat. I then got really flustered because I was worried about getting in trouble, started stuttering, and probably sounded completely trashed. Add to that the fact that we were obviously coming back from the Berg (a festival in the vein of Oktoberfest) and I don't blame them for breathalyzing me. But it did lead to this fun conversation.
Officer: Please blow into the tube.
Me: Okay.
Officer: NOT LIKE THAT.
Me: Sorry.
Officer: Again.
Officer: 0.6 promille.
Me (in my head): Holy shit isn't the legal limit 0.08?
Me (out loud): Is that good or bad?
Officer: It's good... for you.
Anyway, apparently the scale (not the limit) is different in Germany because 0.6 promille is (significantly) less than half of the legal limit for cyclists. And once the officers figured out that we were not drunk, they were quite friendly and sent us on our way with directions to the bicycle path. Disaster (and heart attack) averted!
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