Attention: Fakes!

In recent years, alongside the actual ghost bikes, white-painted bicycles have been appearing on the streets of Frankfurt and other cities in Hesse. These bikes bear messages such as “Ride carefully and use lights!” (see photo) and are intended to encourage cyclists to ride carefully and obey traffic laws. These bikes do NOT originate from our initiative, but from the “Association for the Prevention of Traffic Accidents” (“Verein zur Verhütung von Verkehrsunfällen” (Association for the Prevention of Traffic Accidents)).

The association has been repeatedly informed that these messages constitute classic victim blaming, unfairly attributing blame for accidents to the victims, even though data clearly shows that in the majority of accidents between cars and cyclists, the cyclist is not at fault. Unfortunately, the association persists in its practice and, with the city’s support, continues to erect these reminders. Corresponding complaints can be addressed to geschaeftsstelle@vvv-ev.org and/or sondernutzungen.amt66@stadt-frankfurt.de.