Counterfeit zebra pattern exposed!
By Matt Lukas
Step and stride with caution, folks! The city's sidewalks are becoming a labyrinth of make-believe crossings. It appears militant anti-car activists in Berlin have cooked up a new stunt.
Early Thursday morning (1:30 AM), law enforcement officers from the Gesundbrunnen district stumbled upon three mischievous characters painting the road on Neue Hochstraße with white paint. Whether the officers received a heads-up from neighbors beforehand is a mystery.
Here's the cold, hard truth: As the patrol car pulled near, the three troublemakers – a 20-year-old, and two 24-year-olds – took off like a bat out of hell.
Leaving behind on the asphalt was an unexpected pedestrian crossing where none existed before. Along with the police, they discovered a homemade pedestrian crossing sign, fashioned from cardboard, that the self-proclaimed traffic pacifiers had hung on a pole to signal the phony crossing.
"Nobody sought permission for slapping on those stripes and hanging that sign," hauled out Police Spokeswoman Jane Berndt.
"This pedestrian crossing business was new to us"
The three clandestine sprayers were apprehended by the police after a brief foot chase and briefly detained for identification purposes. They've been set free since.
In the meantime, a self-proclaimed "resistance collective" has taken responsibility for the zebra – stripe spectacle. In a statement, they shared the purpose of their operation:
"There's a kindergarten on the busy Neue Hochstraße, and countless little ones need to cross the street each day. Only an attention-grabbing sign alerts drivers to this fact. We hope to make the street-crossing safer for pedestrians with the installation of this pedestrian crossing."
Berndt countered, "The officers seized a spray can, the attached sign, and another homemade traffic sign that was lying in the bushes."
The trio now stands accused of reckless obstruction of traffic.
Recent weeks have seen anonymous vandals devoting most of their time to painting fake bike lanes on the streets. "We hadn't seen this pedestrian crossing thing before," mused an investigator.
Politics and general-news outlets are abuzz about the latest antics in Berlin, where a group of activists have been caught painting fake pedestrian crossings on a busy street, Neue Hochstraße. Crime-and-justice reports indicate that this resistance collective aims to increase pedestrian safety near a local kindergarten, but their actions have resulted in charges of reckless obstruction of traffic.
