In a park in Stuttgart a man approached us as we were walking the dog, and after realising we spoke English politely said "You must not be aware, dogs must be on lead here".

So would a person from any country who supports that specific law would do...

I don't think so. Often I see people in the UK breaking rules like that and it's almost never mentioned.

But it wasn't just that he mentioned it. It was the way he mentioned it. That the only possible reason for us to not be following the rules was that we must not know them.

Wasn't it just being polite?

That's a possible interpretation as well. But having travelled extensively (and I'm not the rule breaker in most cases), there are very very different approaches to rules and laws even within Europe.

There is a section of Europe where following the rules is what you do (to be clear it's not just Germany[0]). It's assumed that you're going to follow the rules. Adults don't need to be policed in this way. The rules are there for a reason (second order thinking).

Then there are large parts of Europe where there are rules but if they're not enforced then people will by and large not obey them. See, for example, the UK putting in smart motorways (aka, average speed cameras), because before that people would fly up the motor way well above the speed limit.

The Autobahn might have areas with no speed limit, but on the sections that HAVE speed limits you'd be hard pressed to find someone breaking those limits.

I grew up in Australia where it's somewhere between the two. The enforcement of the rules is strict. I once got a jaywalking ticket for crossing an empty road in Melbourne (long story, but it's also one of my stupider moments because it wasn't like the police were behind a bush, they hopped off the same tram I did).

I haven't had a speeding or parking ticket since I left Australia.

Though, circling back to my Stuttgart story, if someone approached you about rule breaking in Australia you can almost guarantee that you'd have pissed them off to the point it would not have been polite. In Paris, as well, I have been yelled at (in French) for dog poop on a sidewalk that wasn't even my dogs -- yes, I do always pick up after my dog.

[0]: Even within Germany I'm sure there are variations on this.

In the Netherlands, when riding a bicycle, most people treat most traffic rules as suggestions. Interesting context to explain what's happening.

This is made possible by the fact that cars (try to) follow traffic rules to the letter.

(Essentially every car driver in the Netherlands is also a cyclist at other times)

There is a logic to it though. On a bicycle you are mostly risking your own life, so you are likely to make good judgements about when you can break the rules. In a car, you are mostly riding other people’s lives (bicyclists and pedestrians). Different incentives.

Ah yes, I think that's a realy common behaviour. In fact, I got hit by a cyclist on an e-bike in London running a red light.

The fact that you’re here to tell is a clear sign that the impact isn’t so high as if it were a car.

Morons exist :-(

Yeah, managed to have stitches in the back of my head, but I'll not argue that I'd rather be hit by a bike than a car. If those are the only options. To be fair, the bike rider didn't exactly walk away without some bumps and bruises either.

Yes, I was just trying to show that the same people can have a different attitude to the same rules if the context is a bit different.

in a some NL cities they have bike sensors and the speeds are low enough to signal a stop across a bike lane keeping it flowing

A neighbor, who wants to see speed cameras installed to control speeding in our small (250 person) New Mexico village: "I always drive 9mph over the posted limit".

I live in Germany. Our park has a daily meet up of dog owners letting their dogs roam.

The rule says they should be on the leash.

Nobody follows it.

Your anecdote is stronger than my anecdote :)

yea, I'm afraid I'm not adding much to the discussion. In the end, it doesn't matter if Germany really is like this - the idea of an orderly country still exists.

I beg to differ, counterpoints are always useful. I have an outsiders view of Germany. I've seen large chunks of it. Even stopped for a month or two (Munich, Berlin). But I don't speak German, or at least not enough to be useful (Mein Deutsch ist nicht gut). I visit a park once or twice, not with a group that you get to know.

My lack of German may well have changed the interaction I mentioned.

Haha.

Just for the record, I am not part of the dog owners group :) I don't think it's nice to let a dog roam in the park, kids get scared, and things can go wrong.

Ah, I read that differently. Yeah, it depends on the dog I guess. I have an English Cocker Spaniel which the worst risk is probably knocking someone over. I'm generally not pro breaking rules like that, and in the case above I actually hadn't seen the sign (it was not well posted). I do generally go out of my way to translate rules where necessary.

You can get along famously in Germany knowing only the following 3 phrases:

1. Ein Bier bitte

2. Noch ein Bier bitte

3. Wo ist der W.C.

Ah my German is a little more advanced than that, but every time I stumble through trying to communicate in German they immediately switch to English. It's not like I can blame them, I wouldn't have time for my fumbling halting German either.

Does make it hard to get practice though.

What I'd do if I lived in Germany is every day read the front page of the newspaper, looking up every word I didn't know.

Due to the internet, I encounter a lot more German than I used to. For example, Netflix runs a lot of movies Auf Deutsch, and I try to figure out what they're saying.

> Often I see people in the UK breaking rules like that and it's almost never mentioned.

Because UK people generally don't care about breaking the rules of no-BBQ in the park. What happens though when someone jumps a queue?

This is simply not true. Most people in New York would not say anything, regardless of whether they support the law or not. I saw people without masks on the subway every day while they were required and nobody ever said anything to them.

I'd imagine that comes partially from risk assessment. Is the risk of a highly negative interaction worth highlighting the rules infraction? AKA, is it potentially worth my life to tell someone they aren't following the rules.

America: where you get shot asking someone to pick up their dog's poop.

America: where you get shot picking up someone else's dog's poop.

It is partly that, and partly because so many people are breaking rules constantly that it just seems normal.

Good.

Mask mandates are an extremely unskilled method of encouraging a behaviour.

The mandate resulted in many people putting any old piece of cloth over their faces.

Mask mandates enabled the topic to become a political issue.

Therefore, the refusal of many to comply is the more correct decisions.

Stupid rules should be broken, and the rule makers ridiculed and removed from office.

If your response to a crisis to become a tyrant, you are not fit to lead.

> Mask mandates are an extremely unskilled method of encouraging a behaviour.

Not where I live.

> The mandate resulted in many people putting any old piece of cloth over their faces.

Not where I live.

> Mask mandates enabled the topic to become a political issue.

Not where I live.

> Therefore, the refusal of many to comply is the more correct decisions.

No, it's actually, how did you put it?, “an extremely unskilled” response.

> Stupid rules should be broken

Agreed, but a rule isn't automatically stupid just because you don't like it.

This doesn’t change my point. There are a lot of people who were for mask mandates (whether you agree with them or not), and where I live, they typically didn’t confront people who were disobeying.

I think it's a great example of social policing, which IMHO better than anorganic, artificial traditional policing. But I'm still not 100% percent sure what he meant because I don't speak german.

I'm 100% sure he meant a leash or restraint. It's obvious from context.

> But I'm still not 100% percent sure what he meant because I don't speak german.

Nobody said anything in German though. A German man said something in English. From what I can tell, you've got speaking english in your skill set.

It is more of a difference in British English, where a leash is used to control a large/dangerous animal, while a lead is used more cooperatively (like walking a dog).

I heard lead quite a bit from trainers, and assume their choice in nomenclature is part of the general positive reinforcement nature of modern dog training.

That's kind of a funny example, because my go-to on the subject is that if you visit a park in Washington State (or most of the US) you are immediately hit with a wall of text that starts with "no alcohol" but goes on to describe every annoying boom box cruising fireworks soliciting vending way you could potentially annoy someone. In Germany you can just sit on the grass, crack a beer, and watch the river roll by.

Good Q.

From my own short stint in Germany, n=1, the rules often did tend to make sense, so it actually seemed like a good idea to follow them.

(I've also had friends complain that Germany wasn't actually as tidy or rules based as they were lead to believe. So take with a grain of salt!)

To clarify, are you categorising German culture as low uncertainty avoidance? I am not sure that I would.