Germany: No parking spaces by A1 forces drivers to stop on the road in one of the towns

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28.06.2017

Drivers on the German A1 have trouble finding a place where they could spend a break. In the absence of alternatives they stop on the road in Remscheid town to great dissatisfaction of its residents.

In June the website for the German town of Remscheid (rga.de) published an article entitled „Truck Drivers in need cause anger (of the town residents – ed.)”.

As we can read on rga.de, one of the roads in Remscheid Lennep – Tenter Weg – is used as a stopover by drivers who cannot find parking spaces by A1 in this region. On the overfilled Remscheid parking lot the trucks are even occupying the parking spaces for passenger cars.

Drivers recommend the Tenter Weg road to each other. As it is easy to guess, there are no sanitary facilities and the conditions are not suitable for drivers but it is the only alternative for those whose tachograph has indicated a break in this area.

The inhabitants of Remscheid are open about their indignation – the bushes by Tenter Weg have become a toilet and a rubbish tip. Unfortunately, it does not look like this problem will be resolved quickly. While there is already a search for a new parking lot, it will be years before it is built – says rga.de.

Deficiencies in German infrastructure

Tenter Weg is one of many places in Germany in which truck drivers should not park but they are forced to do so due to the situation by the roads. In March this year we informed you about heavy goods vehicles which park on the parking lot by one of the shops.

Germany is a transit country for transportation companies from all over Europe. Toll statistics show that there are more and more heavy goods vehicles on German roads every year. The more there are, the bigger the problem with finding a parking space is.

According to the head of the Federal Transport and Logistics Association, Karlheinz Schmidt who made the assessment last year, Germany is missing approximately 10,000 parking spaces for heavy goods vehicles. According to the government plans their number will increase by 6000 by the end of 2017. „We need 10,000 more parking spaces by highways to meet the needs of the current traffic. We estimate that in the next 15 years we will need another 10,000 spaces so we have to build 20,000 of them.”

Photo: rga.de