A long time ago, on a very early morning trip to some Berlin Bürgeramt I was surprised to see that the S-Bahn, U-Bahn and buses were full of kids going to school on their own. This was my first brush with the famous hands-off German parenting1,2 and the adroitness of these kids impressed me. The kids would ride the public transport freely without parental supervision and apparantly this system worked perfectly.
