A fatal crash at a German motorway rest area has once again drawn attention to one of Europe’s most persistent and dangerous infrastructure failures: the chronic lack of safe and legal parking for trucks. While the issue has been discussed for years, recent accidents show that the consequences are no longer theoretical.
In early December 2025, a serious accident occurred at the Am Blauen Stein rest area on the A61 motorway in North Rhine-Westphalia. A small passenger car drove into the rear of a stationary articulated lorry near the exit of the rest area.
According to German media reports, the truck was parked near the rest area exit after the designated parking spaces were full. The collision had devastating consequences: a 53-year-old passenger in the car died at the scene, while the 49-year-old driver suffered life-threatening injuries and had to be rescued from the wreckage by emergency services.
German police opened an investigation to determine whether the lorry had been parked illegally. However, the broader context was already familiar to the industry: the driver had run out of lawful parking options.
This was not an isolated incident.
Just a few months earlier, in July 2025, another serious accident took place at the Varrelheide-Nord rest area on the A2 motorway near Hanover. A car collided at speed with a parked trailer.
One person was killed and three others were seriously injured. A rescue helicopter was deployed, and the motorway was closed for several hours. As in the A61 case, the truck was stationary at a rest area where parking capacity was insufficient for demand.
The safety risks linked to parked lorries are not confined to Germany. Belgium has also seen serious accidents involving stationary heavy goods vehicles, including a crash reported at the end of January 2026.
According to local news, a passenger car collided with a parked truck on 30 January 2026, leaving the car driver seriously injured. The report confirmed that the lorry was stationary at the time of the collision, but did not disclose the exact location or road section.
Who is to blame for these accidents?
Taken together, these cases point to a pattern rather than a series of unrelated tragedies. Yet public reaction to such crashes is often swift and simplistic, with blame quickly directed at truck drivers.
In all three cases described above, however, the vehicles involved were stationary lorries. The trucks did not collide with other road users; they were already stopped. This raises an uncomfortable but necessary question: how can these accidents be explained as the fault of truck drivers alone?
The reality is more complex. Preventing such crashes is not a matter of individual behaviour but of system-level conditions that shape the choices available to drivers.
Following the Belgian accident, industry commentary reported by Flows highlighted a structural contradiction at the heart of European road transport. Drivers are legally required to stop and take their rest once driving-time limits are reached. Yet in many regions, there is simply not enough authorised parking capacity for all vehicles to do so safely and legally.
When rest areas fill up hours before nightfall, drivers are left without real alternatives. Continuing to drive would breach the law. Stopping elsewhere may comply with rest rules but introduces new safety risks for drivers and other road users.
This lack of choice is central to understanding why parked lorries continue to appear in unsuitable or dangerous locations. It is not a question of irresponsibility, but of infrastructure that has failed to keep pace with traffic volumes and regulatory demands.
A structural failure, confirmed by industry and experts
Industry organisations and road safety experts have been warning for years that Europe’s truck parking deficit is not an isolated inconvenience but a systemic failure with direct safety consequences.
According to figures cited by the European Commission and industry groups, the EU lacks several hundred thousand lorry parking spaces, particularly along core freight corridors. Only a small fraction of existing facilities meet basic safety and security standards, leaving drivers with few lawful options once they reach their mandatory rest limits.
In Germany, the scale of the problem has been repeatedly highlighted by the ADAC, which has warned that chronic underinvestment in motorway rest areas has normalised dangerous parking practices. ADAC has pointed out that trucks regularly end up on slip roads, exits and hard shoulders not because of driver negligence, but because official parking areas are full hours before night-time rest periods begin.
The International Road Transport Union (IRU) has made similar assessments at the European level, linking the lack of safe parking directly to road safety, cargo crime and driver wellbeing. The organisation has repeatedly stressed that enforcing driving and rest rules without providing sufficient parking infrastructure places drivers in an impossible position: comply with the law, but accept unsafe stopping conditions.
Hauliers themselves have echoed these concerns: operators have warned that the shortage of parking undermines both operational planning and staff retention. Drivers are often forced to stop earlier than planned, miss delivery slots, or park in locations where they feel unsafe — all of which add stress to an already demanding job.
Large fleet operators have also publicly acknowledged the link between parking conditions and the driver shortage. Representatives of companies such as Girteka have pointed out that poor roadside facilities and the daily uncertainty of finding a legal place to rest are among the factors pushing experienced drivers out of the profession and discouraging new entrants.
The UK: chronic undercapacity confirmed by industry and government data
The UK’s shortage of lorry parking is well documented by both industry bodies and government-backed research. According to estimates from the Road Haulage Association (RHA), the UK has long faced a deficit of around 11,000–12,000 lorry parking spaces, a figure repeatedly cited by the association in evidence submitted to the government and referenced in industry reporting.
This assessment is supported by findings from the UK Department for Transport’s HGV parking capacity surveys, which have shown that demand for overnight parking regularly exceeds supply, particularly near ports, major logistics hubs and strategic road corridors. These surveys confirm that many official sites reach capacity well before drivers’ mandatory rest periods begin.
The shortage has led to widespread reliance on informal and unsuitable locations, including industrial estates, access roads, retail park perimeters and motorway lay-bys. These locations lack basic safety features and were never designed to accommodate heavy goods vehicles.
The RHA has repeatedly warned that this situation represents a systemic failure, not individual non-compliance. In its public statements, the association has stressed that drivers often have no lawful alternative when their driving hours expire, placing them in breach of regulations if they continue driving or at risk if they stop in unsafe locations.
