Public behaviour: red lights, quiet carriages and shared spaces

Newcomers commonly mention:

• People wait at red lights, even when the road is empty. Crossing on red is an administrative offence: under the national fines catalogue, a pedestrian ignoring a red light faces a €5 fine (€10 if property is damaged), and a cyclist €60, rising to €100 or more if the light had already been red for over a second or someone was endangered (fines catalogue as published in 2026).
• Quiet zones on trains. On Deutsche Bahn's ICE trains, quiet areas (Ruhebereich) are marked with symbols; phone calls, ringtones, loud music (even through headphones) and other noisy activities are not wanted there. Separate phone areas (Handybereich) exist for calls.
• House rules in local transport. Berlin's public transport company BVG, for example, prohibits smoking and e-cigarettes in its facilities outside designated areas (€15 penalty), riding scooters, bikes or skateboards in stations and vehicles (€100), leaving luggage unattended, and feeding birds.
• Relaxed attitudes to nudity in specific places. deutschland.de's etiquette guide notes that saunas, a minority of swimming pools and some parks on sunny days are "textile-free", at least at certain times, and that nudity in a sauna has no sexual dimension.
• Queues are not always orderly. A US-born writer in Germany describes orderly lines where there are barriers, but a free-for-all at crowded street-food stands, and having to speak up to keep her turn.

Many everyday expectations are backed by formal rules, from the national fines catalogue for road traffic to transport companies' usage policies. The underlying idea is usually consideration for others in shared spaces. Berlin's BVG frames its usage policy in exactly these terms, describing common sense, consideration for others and friendliness as the basis for everyone feeling safe in its stations and vehicles.

These rules also have practical consequences. Cycling through red lights is fined far more heavily than walking, and transport companies can impose fixed penalties for breaches of their house rules.

• Rules depend on the operator and the place. Each transport company has its own conditions; BVG's rules apply in Berlin, other cities have their own. Deutsche Bahn's quiet zones described here apply on its ICE trains.
• Saunas and pools: whether swimwear is required, optional or not allowed differs from venue to venue and sometimes by day. deutschland.de suggests asking first if you would feel uncomfortable.
• People differ. You will see some pedestrians cross on red and some loud phone calls in the quiet zone; the norms describe what most people expect, not what everyone does.