Posted on 07/01/2014 5:48:05 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Police have apologized to a one-armed man in Cologne after fining him €25 for only having one hand brake on his bicycle.
Bogdan Ionescu from Cologne modified his bicycle so that he could drive it safely using his one hand. But he was stopped at the end of March by a policeman who told him the bike was illegal according to German road safety laws.
The bike had no right-hand brake and so was not roadworthy, the officer told him, and handed him a €25 fine.
Now, after the cyclist's plight caught the attention of local and national media on Wednesday, he received an apology from the police and the offer of a full refund.
It turned out Ionescu's modifications were fully legal, the Kölner Stadtanzeiger newspaper reported on Monday.
A spokesman for Cologne Police told The Local on Tuesday they had apologized to Ioenscu for their mistake. He said they only became aware of the error after Ionescu complained to the Kölner Stadtanzeiger.
The city's police chief Wolfgang Albers is also set to apologize personally to the cyclist.
Ionescu, who works in a theatre box office in Cologne, is said to be relieved that the fine has been dropped.
"It's great news, I'm really happy," he told the Kölner Stadtanzeiger and said that the incident had been weighing on him over the past weeks. He felt frustrated and believed he had been discriminated against.
"It's good that this is how it ends, it's unbelievably good," he said.
Ionescu said police stopped him on March 25th at around 1.15 pm. "Your bike is unsafe, you have no brake on the right of your handlebar," the officer told him, according to Ionescu.
"I know," he answered, "but I have one on the left and I have a back pedal brake so that I can stop the back wheel.”
I didn’t kill my wife!
I don’t care!
/johnny
Good thing Kafka already published. Otherwise he’d have to be a reporter instead of a fiction writer.
I wonder if the Germans make you wear bicycle helmets ?
“He falsified his research. So that RDU-90 could be approved and Devlin McGregor could give you... Provasic!”
Gotta hand it to him.
They did shoot his dog, right? I mean, they were supposed to shoot his dog.
First fine it was just the arm and now they want the leg too?
I have a friend who lost an arm in a motorcycle accident.
He showed up at my house a few weeks later ant it was kind of awkward till I asked him if he killed his wife. It was all cool after that.
dunno but i’ve never been for zero tolerance rules. zero tolerance is idiotic and despotic at the same time.
all i say is if we have to live under idiot rules they are applied consistently across conservatives and liberals alike. libs only want their enemies to be forced to live under them.
In the US, the police chief would come over to personally shoot his dog.
"The law requires that you have two handbrakes on your bicycle. It makes no mention of allowance for how many arms you have."
Now I know where I’m going to move. Cologne Germany where there is so little crime that police are out hunting for the heinous act of illegally modified bicycles.
Bicycle condoms would solve this problem. Safe riding. Curbus interuptus.
Trained by DC police?
Kill HIS wife or David Jansen’s wife?
I don't believe you. What does your wife say about that?
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