Completion: AutoClub: “Extreme deficiency” of truck parking spaces

According to the Auto Club Europe (ACE), there is an “extreme defect” at truck parking spaces on German motorways. This emerges from a nationwide examination of the association. According to this, the utilization of the parking spaces in the period from April to June was an average of 151 percent – so they were clearly overcrowded.

For the survey, volunteers of the ACE have examined 132 motorway resting places between April 15 and June 3 each. The parking spaces were examined on working days from 8.30 p.m. They counted 5,088 parking spaces – but 7,664 parked trucks. In 76 percent of the parking facilities examined, trucks stood in entrances and exits or on the hard shoulder. In some cases, car parking spaces were also delivered. The examiners found free parking spaces at 16 percent of the rest areas examined.

The negative record during the investigation was the Brönninghausen rest area near Bielefeld with an occupancy rate of 438 percent. Instead of regularly permissible, 35 trucks were parked there. Basically, the situation on the busy east-west transactions, the A3 in Bavaria, the A5 between Frankfurt and Karlsruhe as well as in the large areas of Berlin and Frankfurt am Main Precar.

ACE: Do not overestimate individual observations

Since it was always snapshots, the individual observations should not be overestimated, an ACE spokeswoman said. Seen all over Germany, however, a clear picture emerges: “Anyone looking for a parking space today as a truck driver is often forced to keep in unsuitable places,” added ACE chairman Sven-Peter Rudolph. This significantly affects the necessary rest periods of the drivers and at the same time endangers the safety of drivers.

The ACE therefore demands tens of thousands of additional truck parking spaces nationwide from the federal government and the motorway company – also through better use of space at existing rest areas and parking spaces. In contrast, particularly dangerous areas that are used as alternative parking areas should be installed. The system for digital display available in the test so far should therefore be expanded.