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Wayward rider

dfm, APApril 28, 2009

German police say a Chinese cyclist's wayward search for a Munich subway station led him to pedal for kilometers down the autobahn expressway and accidentally out of the city.

https://p.dw.com/p/HfTE
The autobahn in Germany
The autobahn is for trucks, trailers and cars, but not push bikes as one rider discoveredImage: AP

A patrol stopped the 26-year-old on the A99 highway Saturday evening. The student told police he was at the end of an 80-kilometer (50 miles) ride from the southwestern German city of Augsburg.

The young man wished to finish his trek by subway and had been following blue signs marked with the letter “U” in the belief they would lead him to the U-bahn – a German subway station, a police report said.

Unfortunately similar blue signs also denote diversions – “Umleitungen” in German – and they instead led him to the autobahn.

The man was fined 10 euro ($13) for illegal highway use and sent on his way with a map.