“Schwarzwälder Bote”, a German newspaper has recently published an article about drivers who park their trucks on a parking lot near one of the supermarkets in Empfingen. The problem of the lack of parking spaces for trucks applies to the entire country and bothers not only the employees of the transport industry. Its consequences may be tragic.
Despite the no-parking sign trucks park next to the Lidl supermarket. Why do they ignore it? They simply have nowhere to go. Every single day there’s a “battle” for spaces at the nearby gas station. It is the same in the “Alte Kaserne” industrial zone where drivers have been parking for several years despite the immense displeasure of local entrepreneurs.
Lidl employees do not react to the situation in the parking lot. According to residents and local media it is downright scandalous – blocked entrance, piles of garbage and even feces. Only the hunt by the municipal guard has been effective, to a small degree, as they work only during certain hours. Within 4 weeks the guards issued over 50 fines.
Freight forwarders of the North Rhine-Westphalia region urge politicians to react
Empfingen in Baden-Württemberg is just one of many places in Germany where there is almost no parking spaces.
People who park at night at the parking entrance endanger themselves and others” – stressed Rüdiger Ostrowski, Freight forwarders Union head from North Rhine-Westphalia, for “Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung” journal.
Ostrowski urges the government to react to the situation. Transport industry employees has been suffering for years due to the shortage of parking spaces and the traffic on German roads is continuously growing.
This year a 33-year-old man died in North Rhine-Westphalia at the entrance of a crowded parking lot by A40. The man drove into a truck parked at the entrance. At the end of last year a motorcyclist was killed in the same place as he drove into a tank standing on the side of the road.
Photo: Schwarzwälder Bote
