As for the traffic in the Netherlands, there is an excellent channel explaining everything about Dutch traffic philosophy "Not Just Bikes" by a Canadian living in the Netherlands. As for the language, Dutch is a bit conservative on the vocabulary, German is more conservative on the grammar. If you take things strictly, Dutch is much older than German. But I find that sounding a bit weird. As if people in (what is now) the Netherlands were talking to each other, whilst in Germany people developed no language. That is of course nonsense. Dutch is older, because Germany is a more recent country than the Netherlands and was therefore later in standardizing the language. Remember a language is just a bunch of people speaking a dialect but happen to have an army.
At 7: 1 you show a road where in your words "a bike could be here". This is actually false. This particular road is offlimits for bikes. The lines are there as an optical illusion for cars, this way the road looks narower and they tend to drive a bit slower. The path you can see to the right is the path for bikes. Total separation. Only in urban areas you will find shared roads, they are slower speeds and the sugested bike lanes are wider than shown in this picture. Cool video tho :)
Regarding the small lanes on the freeways, here’s a long and technical answer for you :) As a Dutch traffic engineer I can explain the reason that we have those narrow lanes on our freeways. They are called “spitsstroken” when you have them on the outer side of the road and “plusstroken” when you have them on the inner side. They exist mainly to create more capacity during rush-hours and are always accompanied with electronic overhead signage: when the lane is open, you’ll see a green downwards pointing arrow and when it’s closed you’ll see a red X. During off-peak hours these lanes are mostly closed. The reason that they are narrow is due to lawmaking and policies regarding traffic management: when you construct a permanent extra lane you have to go through all kinds of procedures and (environmental) laws which can take years to develop. Also, many Dutch freeways are narrow constructed so when you expand it you also have to build new bridges, viaducts and other structures as well. Making a “spitsstrook/plusstrook” is simply the quickest way of creating more capacity. Also, spitsstroken are quite easily built because they take the space of the hard shoulder (vluchtstrook). With a few simple tweaks like adding roadmarkings, sensors for the traffic management system and breakdown bays, spitsstroken don’t need much extra asphalt which is also more cost and timesaving for constructing them. The last reason why these lanes are narrow is the maximum speed. Dutch road-guidelines say that, when you construct a freeway lane, the minimum width of a lane has to be 3,25-3,50m wide in order to maintain 120-130km/h. Anything smaller than that results in a reduction of the max speed: lanes that are around 3 meters wide have a max speed of 100km/h, lanes smaller than that results in a reduction to 90, 80 or even 70km/h. The last one is not typical on Dutch freeways and they only use it during roadworks. The main advantage of reducing the max speed during rush-hours is that you can create more capacity and therefore reducing the chance of having traffic queues. So that’s a win win: those lanes reduce the maximum speed and are more simple and quicker to build. Sorry for the long post haha!
The most important aspect of safe biking in the Netherlands is that car drivers are used to bikers on the road. Many drivers also bike and thus can 'feel' bike traffic and know how to approach it.
Old English is almost Old-Dutch and quite simular with Old-German. (and to some extend Old -Norse) Dutch is the oldest and most conservativ of all West-germanic languages. English changed a lot, High german replaced the older Low german, Scandinavian languages changed a lot as well. Present Dutch and Frisian are of all germanic languages the closest to English. (dat is voor jou-that is for you. Daar is 'n opening-there is an opening. Ik mis jou (je) I miss you. Waar is de bal? 't is overwelmend. De school is open. Hoe is 't (how is it) Just stick to your English pronunciation and you'll be fine.....
Interesting thing about the word brand for fire is the following: in the US in the old days cattle would be marked to show what farm or ranch they were from. The cattle was marked with a hot iron burning the logo of the ranch into the skin. Because of the Dutch word brand meaning fire, they were branded. This ultimately led to the English word brand, for a company name, coming from the Dutch word brand. The branding of cattle in Dutch is brandmerk (burned marking) and Dutch translation for brand is merk (marking, in German Marke). So guess where the words market and marketing come from. There soo many Dutch words in American English, because of the Dutch heritage. The US dollar for instance comes from the old Dutch coin daalder. don’t get me started. It’s all related.
What you wrote about cattle branding, brands, merk, Marke etc. was quite interesting, I never thought about that before. But you got the origin of market/Markt wrong. That word has it's origin in latin mercatus, which means trade or a place of trade.
On average there are about twice as many roundabouts in the Netherlands per inhabitant as in Germany. However, they are more common in the South and the West of Germany. The latter might be partly due to Germany’s neighbours to the west and south having more of them. Switzerland has similar numbers as the Netherlands, Belgium’s are a bit higher yet and France is taking the crown with close to six times as many roundabouts as Germany per inhabitant. Source: “Going Round in Circles? The Countries That Prefer Roundabouts” and “How common are roundabouts? (plus a bunch of other maps)”.
Obstacle is originally a French word which in turn originates from Latin "obstaculum". Like a lot of other French vocabulary, it made its way into English and Dutch. As the European aristocracy mostly spoke French until the 18th/19th century, there used to be more French words in German of earlier times than today where Germans prefer to use English words.
In dutch there are so many words from A to Z that are originally french words. The list is very long. Most people dont even realize that it was originally French words.
Fun fact: All Dutch government funded vehicles (except for the military) have those stripes that the fire department has. Every branch has different color schemes, like customs, inspectorate of the roads, ambulances, police and even military police (they can fine/arrest you too!), inspectorate of transport, etc. etc. The Feuerwehr and Brandweer, have the same second part "weer/wehr". It is the same old germanic word as in "Wehrmacht" (army). Wehr/weer in old German means "fighting something, resisting against something" in this case fire/Feuer/brand.
Ja, 1x war ich in den Niederlanden, in Amsterdam. Dort hat es mir gefallen. Es fühlte sich wie in Deutschland an. Nur die Sprache klang anders, aber nett.
In Germany emergency vehicles go down the middle of the autobahn. If you are in a traffic jam in Germany on the autobahn you must not drive in the middle of your lane, you must drive at the side of the lane so that there is enough space in the middle of the autobahn for emergency vehicles.
As you suspected: Dutch is the older language. German is kind of a younger cousin. They have the same Germanic origin, but today's German arose more or less after Luther, while Dutch originated from the Middle Ages. It is perhaps also interesting that in Dutch Friesland people also speak Frisian. if Dutch is a language somewhere between English and German, you can describe Frisian as a language between Dutch and English. Have a Nice day.
Well, it is not entirely correct. The Luther Bible is based on Kanzlei Deutsch a written language of High German that is older . Standard Dutch is greatly influenced by the spelling of the Staten Bible which actually younger than the Luther bible. So introduction of the spelling is actually not a good point to make which one is older. It depends on where you live in Germany. In Northern Germany they used to speak low German/low Saxon. That has a lot in common with Dutch. Nowadays you find speakers in the rural areas, but less and less people are able to speak low Getman. In Northern Germany High German became the common language much later than in the south. In the southern half of Germany they speak high German dialects as a native language. That is the reason why most Northern Germans do not speak a dialect because low German is hard to understand for someone from the southern part of Germany. So in the north it is a young language. But in the south it has its roots.
30 years ago nobody liked roundabouts, but over the years I notice that drivers are a lot more relaxed because of them. they are a win for me. the bike lanes are not painted it is red asphalt. hindernis is also a dutch word.
No wonder Dutch sounds 'old' to you. There is good reason for that. Dutch is actually much closer to old English than modern English or American is. English got rid of quite a few vowel sounds that the Dutch kept. Not sure if that is a good thing 😁
It makes sense that Dutch sounds old to you. Of course, it isn't older or newer; English, German and Dutch have a common ancestry, so all 3 languages have the same age. Yet, English had the Great Vowel Shift, and German had its Germanic Consonant Shift, while Dutch didn't. Ecolinguist has a video "Dutch Language | Can English speakers understand it?" where one of the English speakers, Simon Roper, had a strong advantage because he studied Old English. Back in the day, the languages might have been (almost) mutually intelligible.
WWe actually had a few major spelling overhauls. First official spelling was adopted in 1804 called Spelling-Siegenbeek, this was in the south of the country replaced around 1930 with the Willems-Spelling. Then around 1850 we switched to Spelling deVries en Te Winkel which is mainly still used till today (with some minor tweaks first in the 70's and later in 1995 and 2007) With the change in spelling some pronunciations changed with it.
One of these has become very topic these days: furlough. Derived from the Dutch word 'verlof'. Verlof has mostly a military meaning: not being on duty. In English it can mean the the same but it can mean also 'being in quarantine' (due to Covid for example). But I am not sure whether the word is common in American English.
As former Fireman from Germany, the stripes and overall look depend on the city and especially on the company who built the Emergency Unit. Well known producers of Firetrucks in Germany are Schlingmann, Magirus and Metz (mainly ladders), as well as Rosenbauer (Austrian company I guess) and Ziegler. These companies buy the chassis that has been chosen by the respective fire department and build the fire truck upon it according to the set requirements. And, in some regions of the US you'll find green or even blue fire trucks, to my last knowledge at least.
As someone else already said, those small lanes are 'plusstroken' or 'plus lanes' they were approved in an emergency law in 2003. However they're extremely uncommon. They're on only 5 highways on 9 separate sections totaling 92 km vs 2474 km highway total. tl;dr by thinning each lane a small amount an additional small inner lane was created with a maximum speed of either 100 km/h or 80 km/h. They're only allowed to be open during rush hours or unusual high traffic volumes, but never all day. The spare outer lane is the 'vluchtstrook' lit. 'flee lane' and that's where you should try to bring your vehicle to a stop if it breaks down. However, they may also be opened during rush hours. Fun fact, in Dutch with have 'hindernis' which means obstacle. Meaning you can say "Een hindernis is een obstakel" (a 'hindernis' is an obstacle) :P I love roundabouts. Generally within city limits cyclists get priority over anyone entering and exiting the roundabout and outside city limits cars have priority. Fun fact, there's no law on the minimums and such for cycling lanes and separated bike paths; only recommendations. However, when an accident happens an investigation to the cause is launched and if it turns out the road is at fault ( *especially* when the road builder didn't follow recommendations) the road builder may be liable. So generally they're pretty good at following those recommendations. I think I saw a comment like it, but all emergency and civic vehicles have this stripe pattern but with different colours. At 6:58 this is to remind people that there are cyclists. As a car driver it's perfectly allowed to drive on the red, but you do need to give space to cyclists when you encounter them. At 7:03 these lines just indicate where the road ends. You're just sharing the road with cyclists. This is possible because the maximum speed is low enough. Finally at 7:10 that road is actually not accessible by bike, you need to take the separate bike path to the left. Lastly if you search "indo-european language timeline" you can find some sources that say Modern Dutch is older and some that Modern German is older. Either way, it seems to be fairly close.
I said that bike path on the left at 7:10, that should be the right. The cycling path is clearly to the right. Guess that's the price you pay for randomly waking up and deciding to watch YT videos from your recommended at 4-ish am xD Also there's a "with" that should be a "we" and an "it's" that should be a "you're". Not even sure how I managed that
They used to burn logos into wooden boxes which is called a brandmerk in Dutch. (Brandmark) Now you know where the word Brand comes from. It has its origin in Germanic linguistic ancestry. Google Dutch loanwords into English. You will be amazed. Landschap for instance, became landscape in English. But also the US word cookie is originally Dutch.
Cyclists in the Netherlands don't always have right of way. Cyclists like all drivers have to give way to all drivers coming from the right, for instance. All road users must abide by the traffic rules. And children receive traffic lessons at school at an early age. Nice video.
Dutch is just a more conservative language and shows less changes over the centuries. Although invaded just as much as England, less influence of occupiers has made it through, maybe because we never had real royal power structures with court-life. It remained more the language of the people. The elites spoke foreign languages like Latin or French. Separate. Unique freak accident of history.
In the Netherlands everyone is a cyclist. And some of them drive cars. So every car drivers knows to give way to cyclists. Bike lines are at least 1m wide and relatively safe.
So if you for instance drive from one city to another , you bike it all the way.(from 30 to 300 km) ? Dutch traffic is full of highways and millions of cars. Outside cities everybody drives a car in The Netherlands.....
@@jsb7975 nope. not everyone, i dont even have a drivers license. distances until approximately 30 km i ride by bike mostly, above that, I use public transport. In rare occasions, I carpool. And.. I'm not the only one in my surroundings. Really. Not everyone drives cars in the Netherlands. A lot of people really don't. It's a choice. 😉😘
@@I.Toverheks easy checkable. 9 million passenger-cars. 17 million inhabitants minus people under 18 years old ....... Then you get the vans, company cars a.s.o.
@@jsb7975 so that's everyone to you? 🧐 according your logic: 9.000.000: 17.000.000= 0.5 car per inhabitant also easy to check: 17 million inhabitants, 23 million bicycles 23.000.000: 17.000.000= 1.3 bicycle per inhabitant 👀
@@I.Toverheks well 17 million MINUS - 18 years old. Doesn't take out the fact that more and more people take trains when travelling from one city to another. Anyway people do not bike from Tilburg to Eindhoven or Nijmegen. Maybe you are an exception. Good for you though.
Feuerwehr has to similar words in Dutch, but we don’t use the combination. Feuer is vuur (fire) and wehr is weer. So in Dutch it could be vuurweer, but it isn’t because we have two words vuur and brand. Where vuur is mostly neutral or good, like kampvuur or vuurwerk (campfire or fireworks), brand (on fire) is not, actually it’s the opposite. Brand means something is on fire, a building or a forest. Brand is mostly a fire out of control.
I'm Dutch and I've never seen that type of narrow lane before. I'm guessing it's an extra lane during peak hours. We have those, but normally they're on the right side of the highway. They're ex-ed out when it's not so busy and during peak hours they open up the extra lane by removing the X on the overhead signs. Normally there's space to the left and the right of the lanes for emergency vehicles. Sometimes there's no space at the left side, so there's only an emergency lane on the right side. We don't have this rule of clearing the middle of the road during traffic jams for emergency vehicles like they do in Germany and Austria (Rettungsgasse). The red bike lanes are not just a reminder that bikes can be there, but it's actually their lane. The cars are allowed to drive there when there's no bikes riding there, but the bikes take priority over the cars. The cars must adjust to the bikes and not hinder them or rush them. We have "hindernis" in Dutch as well, but this is an obstacle in a sporting context, like a hurdle. Dutch and German stem from the same language family as does English, Proto-Germanic. So there's no age difference, they just evolved differently.
I drove in Athens once. That was also an experience. Not as bad as in the UK where they all drive on the wrong side of the road and roundabouts are often only a white dot on the middle of the corssroads that nobody cares about.
I've also got ADD. What I have learnt is that school does not work for me. Being thrown in the tiger pit does. I don't have any diplomas but working for engineering firms (and self study) I am now an 'unqualified' design and lead engineer at an off-shore engineering firm. I took me only 8 years to get from zero to where I am now.
That little lane is indeed for emergency.. Some companies order their drivers to use it.. Because the punishment is less then what they make on a deal... They don;t care that the safety is gone
I’m Dutch and worked some time in Bavaria together with 2 other guys from the Netherlands 🇳🇱. Our German coworkers said hearing Dutch reminded them of hearing drunken toddlers speak. One of the best compliments I ever got :)
7:07 That is actually not true. Those lines on the picture just show the sides of the road. You are not allowed to cycle there and the cycle path is to the right in that picture. Some of these roads (50 or 60km/h) do have cyclists on them but the lines do not necessarily signal bike lane (only if they're more broad or red its an actual bike lane). They are actually used to make the road appear less wide which slows drivers down.
Bike Lanes are like everywhere in Hamburg now 😅 as a bus driver, I can tell you. And concerning Dutch, for me it sounds like a mixture of German and English 🙈 as well as old German words. Maybe Almanac or Celtic
German is much more conservative with language development than dutch.. It still ises articles different for male female and neuters. They still use genetive articles something yiu find only in the older dutch bible editions, but no where otherwise in spoken nor written texts
A roundabout is safer for bikes according to SWOV. On averge it's 60% less dangerous for bikes. It's very expensive, and of course, the main reason for not having them. Often it's promoted not having them because it's more difficult to learn to handle this and in that view safer. Statistics show differntly.
Many roads in the netherlands are designed for natural traffic calming. Have you seen How many stop signs you dont see in the netherlands or Europe vs usa?
I’m a native Dutch? pretty fluent in German. Obstakel to us in Dutch is more like any obstacle used for anything in your way, while hindernis is mainly used for a deliberate obstacle, like in an obstacle course. They put up hindernissen for you. So the words are not exactly interchangeable in Dutch. Dutch is much more close to English than German BTW and seems to be easier to learn. We have a lot I words that are the same or similar to English? Many however ate what we call false friends: the same word but used in a different way. Thank for loving the sound of Dutch more. I’m not a fan of the sound of German. I love the roundabouts. Lately there is a lot of development with these, like bike priority. The narrow left lane I have no clue. I drive almost every day? Never noticed it. In Germany nowadays, in traffics jams you have to keep an open a space for emergency vehicles. So cars in the left move more left an the right or middle line move to the right. If you’ve only been in small towns you’ve not experienced the real thing for bike lanes. The stipend on the road is old fashioned and outdated. Check out the channel Not Just Bikes. You’ll see the real thing. Good luck on your ADD. Don’t over concentrate.
You were right about "brand" meaning fire but we actually have 2 words that mean fire, the second one is "vuur" and that one sounds more like feuer. Brand is used when saying for example "The building is on fire" (Het gebouw staat in brand) and vuur is used when saying for example "Will you light the fire for me?" (Wil jij voor mij het vuur aansteken?). When it's a big fire we often say brand, and with a small fire we say vuur. That's why the brandweer is called the BRANDweer, they fight big fires. Obstakel is more used to describe things on the road, Hindernis is a word we often use but more with things like a hindernisbaan (obstacle course) or obstacles to make a game harder.
The word Brand also exists in German. It's an unwanted fire which will be fought by the Feuerwehr. "Das Gebäude steht in Brand" is a common expression in German, just like Dutch "Het gebouw staat in brand". There are all kinds of composites, e.g. Waldbrand (forest fire), Großbrand (huge building on fire), Brandgefahr (fire hazard), Brandschaden (fire damage)...
Roundabouts are the best thing since sliced bread. Easy on, easy off.... once you get used to them. I saw a documentary on something like Discovery once (might have been Mythbusters) were it was explained that the firetrucks in the US tend to have a specific red for their specific outfit. NY red would be slightly different from Chigago red (just examples, heck they might have yellow now) I even have seen green, black and pink firetrucks in the US (well... images that is)
Dutch used to be a lot more much like German but there are a lot o differences between German and Dutch like Germans invent words for new things or discribe them. We dutch just steal words from other languages. We have a lot of frence and English words. And other things Der die dem das we used to have that to, but got rid of it like more then a century ago. Also lots of dutch people speak and understand English, because unlike German TV movies and series are shown in there original language, so we watch a lot of English TV. German TV is always in German.
you actually pronounced the word ‘brandweer’ in German. But then really as a German, born in Germany. We don't pronounce the 'r' very loudly here. In fact, in many parts of the Netherlands . The 'r' is an 'AIR' just like the English 'r'.
For many centuries, French was the language of the aristocracy and elites and Latin was the language of science. As a result a very large percentage of words in English and many other European languages are the same as the ones used in French and were based in Latin. Dutch and English are closer related than German and English and share many of the same words. Over time however, the meaning of words will shift The Dutch word "smal" and English "small", have the same origin, but in Dutch means narrow. "Gat" and "Gate", but the Dutch meaning is a hole. "Town" and "Tuin", the Dutch meaning garden, the original meaning being something like a walled or fenced area in the early middle ages. Languages evolve and influence each other, so any quest for the eldest language is a bit useless as mist if those are not very close to what it was a thousand years ago. Read Beowulf in Saxon and you'll be hard pressed to understand. The Gothic bible version of "Our father" starts with "Atta unsar in himinam," and any German would be hard pressed to recognise it apart from unsar (unser) and in.
Apparently roundabouts are safer than traffic lights. Don't know if that's true but on a related topic I live on a busy corner where there was a traffic light. Now the main road has the right of way and all the noise from trucks and buses has almost completely gone. It's when they stop at the light and then get going again that's noisy. Also: I lived in my sister in law's house in Texas and there was a bike path near the house to the next town. Incredibly rare though and even on there car drivers can be pretty agressive.
I personaly prefer European roundabouts over American stop-squares :) ... and the left lane is for overtaking. You are not allowed to overtake a car on the right.
Apologise but the way you are cutting the tape all the time is very annoying. My suggestion would be to stop cutting and to tell your story in one take right.
Dass Niederländisch älter als Deutsch wäre, kann man so nicht sagen. Afrikaans ist aber eine ältere Form des Niederländischen (17.Jh) und somit interessant. Leider ist es auch die Sprache der Apartheid und somit geächtet. Afrikaans wird denn auch immer weniger gesprochen. Eine richtig alte europäische Sprache ist Isländisch, die kann ich Ihnen (dir) empfehlen, zu lernen. Vorteil: man kann dann auch die altnorwegischen Schriften lesen (germanische Heldensagen)
We call that a "spitstrook" it's normally open only during rush hours, and has to be indicated with a green arrow to be used. For me, a pet-peeve about German drivers is they don't stay right or move to the right enough. Also hindernis is also a dutch word with the same meaning as obstakel, but to me it seems hindernis is dated instead of obstakel.
I believe Dutch is much closer to Low German than to High German (which is partly artificial, as well); the Berlin dialect, for instance, has quite a few pronunciation rules that coincide with Dutch: "Dat" instead of "Das", "nee" instead of "nein", "ick" instead of "ich", and so on. Also, Dutch has been influenced by French to a much greater degree than German has: a word like "obstakel" has been lifted directly out of French, for instance. Both languages got canonized in the late 18th/early 19th century, a process that has sped up through the advent of TV and the internet in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Nice video. I'm from the netherlands and like the Dutch infrastructure. I'm a Frisian. It's a province in the Netherlands, but from original a country. There are still some people in Germany who are speaking West-Frisian or North- Frisian. And in our province we also speaking Frisian. That's originally called Westerlouers-Frisian.
Is that Frisian the same or similar to the one that the Ostfriesen in Germany speak? I am German and my father beside German also spoke lower German. This sometimes helps me to understand Nederlands better. Because there are so many similarities to German words, it is not hard for me to read Dutch.
@@Ka-ly8oi no it isnt. German Frisian is much more saxon then Dutch Frisian (for Dutch: its more simular to the Groningen dialect), Dutch Frisian is more scandinavian.
@@Ka-ly8oi The original Frisians went to Britain after the Roman empire collapsed. They were replaced with Danes immigrating here even way before the viking age. What is now called Frisian, is indeed more scandinavian. You can still see it in the people over there (long, slender, blond and blue eyed). The Danes mixed in with the few Frisians that stayed behind.
As a Dutchman I would say there's a slight difference between a 'hindernis' and an 'obstakel'. A 'hindernis' is something that hinders you in one way or another. For example, something that makes it less easy to pass. An 'obstakel' on the other hand, is a concrete object that stands in the way or that you have to watch out for. It's a small difference in what the emphasis is on. The word 'hindernis' mainly refers to the fact that something can hinder you. The word 'obstakel' mainly points to the hindering object.
The Stripes on the road indicate the speed on the street. No stripe in the middle of the road means you can only drive 60km. Double stripes means 80 km. Double stripes with green in the middle means 100km. When you go over a foothpathvinto a living area you can only go 30 km
If you want a scary roundabout system try The Magic Roundabout in Swindon, UK. This is a large roundabout with mini roundabouts at each of the exits and requires a good deal of concentration to negotiate it. Once you have sorted this you can cope with any roundabout anywhere!
for the picture in 7:10 the bikelane is on the right next to the road the stripes are just to warn for where the road ends. We have different road markings depending on how fast you can go on that specific road. This marking means you could go 80 kmph on that road and if the lines in the middle are filled green you can go 100 kmph. Many tourists actually drive on the road instead of the bike lane next to the road which is really annoying to most Dutch. If you do find a shared road for cars and bikes they are almost always 30kmph so it wouldn't be scary to have a car drive past you. As soon as the roads get faster we have completely separated bike lanes.
That image at 7:09, those lines on the side of the road is definetely not for bicycles. The stripes are super long and it is a really small space. Probably more to help cars not get off the road. In that picture you do see a separate bike lane, more on the right. Hindernis/hindernissen is also used in dutch for obstacles. More often when it is not a physical obstacle (for example, when you go through a tough course at uni and it is hard to pass a test to get on with it) or in a leisure environment. The things horses jump over for example are also called 'hindernissen' in Dutch
Hindernis also exists in Dutch, but it would not really be used to describe a traffic calming measure, rather a ramp to climb over in sports or some game show. It could also mean something you experience like some process feels like it isn't going smooth and you would say something like wow that really feels like a hindernis.
There is a bike lane in Southern California. I been to the Santa Barbara beach and there are surprisingly good bike lanes, cars that pay attention to cyclists, and good wide sidewalks for walking.
until the 90's the build only dedicated lanes for bikes on the sidewalk. since then also only markings on the road. not only because it is cheaper. most because they want to slow down the cars. in berlin some roads even have both: on the sidewalk and markings on the road.🤮
Hi, interesting to hear a really outside view! Just a couple of clarifications. The situation you showed at 6:58 is very interesting one. It is a bikepath where it is allowed for cars to use, but they are only allowed in a sense they completely have to respect and basically react like bikeriders. Hard to explaine. In this situation it is only one way. In the opposite direction it is only a bikepath, no cars allowed. The other situation is at 7:10. There definitely no bikes are allowed. The bikepath is to the right.
In the Netherlands different categories of vehicles have a different level of priority. It could be bikes, disabled vehicles, motor bike, scooters, mopeds, vans, lorries, everything is on a scale of priority and you need to know what types of vehicles you have to give way to. And if memory serves disabled vehicles change the level of priority depending on if they are on a bike lane or on the road. A parked car can be at fault if a cyclist hits it whilst it's parked.
Actually, no. If you're on a priority road, all drivers should give way. And if you approach a priority road, you should give way to all drivers. If there is no priority road, then drivers from the right have priority. (And drivers include anyone operating a vehicle, including cyclists.)
There are of course also many roundabouts in Germany. I see many of them close to the dutch border. Though The Netherlands do have many more. Hindernis is the same in dutch as it is in German.
I do live in Germany about half an hour from the Dutch border and we do have both roundabouts as well as stripes reminding car drivers of cyclists' right to be on the road, too, and to look out for them. I must admit, though, that both roundabouts as well as bicyle lanes in the Netherlands are a lot more elaborate most of the time.
Regarding the Dutch language, it's truly more ancient then German. Logical: look at the times the Netherlands and Germany developed. But to say which of these two languages is more modern - or developed - is hard to say. German is developing intro (all the dialects interact with each other), Dutch developes extro (many influences from English and French). If you want to learn an ancient language, Lamb, do it with Czech, for example. It would burst your mind.
Kreisverkehre sind super. Allerdings nur wenn sie korrekt genutzt werden. Ampeln behindern den Verkehr und nerven besonders , wenn sehr wenig Verkehr ist.
In Northern California, east Bay Area ( and SF) there there tons of bike lanes. As well as“ bike boulevards” where it is easiest for bikes and barricades for cars. There’s lots of bike only paths where avid cyclist, mostly families biking together. I take my two kids to school on a cargo bike even. And that’s quite common here.
