The cleanest sidewalk in Germany

Update: Tina found a story about a guy that killed his neighbor with a snow shovel after they argued about whose responsibility it was to shovel the snow.  I took a screenshot and uploaded it to the Picasa album (click the Picasa icon at the bottom of the post)...

December 2010 may turn out to be Europe's coldest December on record.  Snow, ice, and cold weather have caused traffic problems and major delays at some of the world's busiest airports (LHR, CDG, FRA).

The utility company in Wiesbaden responsible for plowing the streets and several other winter services (Winterdienst) is ELW (Entsorgungsbetriebe der Landeshauptstadt Wiesbaden).  ELW's website (English translation) indicates that each resident has very specific responsibilities associated with snow removal.  In short, each resident is supposed to keep the sidewalk in front of their house free of snow and ice between the hours of 7AM and 10PM.  Failure to do so can be cause for fines (probably only in extreme cases) and can also lead to liability for injuries (this is the real concern for most people).

I definitely see lots of my neighbors clearing the sidewalks (often while it is still snowing) but when I have walked Oscar to school I also also seen large sections of sidewalk where nobody has cleared the snow.  I am pretty diligent about the snow removal.  I definitely do not want to be liable for anybody's injuries (there is a bus stop 20 feet from our front door so we get a lot pedestrians walking in front of our house).  On Sunday I shoveled the sidewalk four times.  I did it two or three more times yesterday.  I shoveled it again this morning before I went to work (we got another three inches of snow overnight) and again when I got home.  After I had finished shoveling this morning, I had Tina take a photo of the cleanest sidewalk in Germany (notice that my neighbor to the south hasn't done much of anything with respect to cleaning the sidewalk).