Pretty much every day someone parks their car on the tram tracks and blocks our city's tram network from operating
This does unfortunately happen multiple times per day. Sometimes it’s smaller incidents where the tram driver can get out and collapse the car’s mirror. Other times the owner of the car comes out of a nearby house after the tram used its bell extensively (like today) and moves the car. And then there are times when police needs to get involved to tow the car which often takes upwards of 1 hour.
The truly infuriating part is that if the tram damages a poorly parked car, the transportation company will have to pay the damages. Poorly parked vehicles never get fined and the owners will only need to pay if the car ends up getting towed.
Why do we accept that drivers sabotage a city’s public transport infrastructure like this?
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The lack of a fine for that is insane.
It’s eatablished common law. Park your steam powered velocipede in a right of way and one can suck it.
The lack of "just fucking ram it" is insane.
This is mainly an enforcement problem. If the city simply towed every car that did this, this sort of shit would stop immediately. But of course nobody wants to hurt the precious little feefees of car drivers because they're very very special little snowflakes.
Yep! Here in Germany many of the big political parties are bought by the car industry and car centric thinking is very widespread. Any measures to limit these issues like cutting free parking spots will cause a big uproar.
If you buy a car, do not buy German. I certainly won’t.
They're not even that good anymore: see the build quality of the Mercedes EQS: https://youtu.be/XrwZgCLs-zs
Audi seems to have done similar. I have a Q6. It’s been in the shop more than my garage. Had to beg them to get an older q5 loaner cause they kept giving me Q6 loaners which has the same issues. Road noise, shitty charging, last week it just errored and told me to pull over. I had to exit the vehicle for 20 min while it “reset”.
Add that is a privacy nightmare in the USA… next car won’t be a German car made in the last decade.
The BMW can't even make turn signals work anymore.
actually the newer ones(after
2017) have better turn signal stalks than the slightly older ones(20002016) 😅(the slightly older ones are really unintuative and work kinda like buttons rather than normal, but they switched back to normal style in 2017ish)Isn't this particular issue a city responsibility?
For starters most narrow streets here (Süd-Westen) where the trams go, are tram only or tram+pedestrians in a centre area. But very very rarely tram+cars or trams+bicycles.
The issue seems fining and law enforcement, but the actual error happens way earlier on: tram tracks should never run right next to street car parking spots (they can be next to parking spots but only if cars enter the spots from elsewhere and there is obstacle between tram tracks and car parking spots.
It's poor design.
And probably city responsibility because I can't imagine Bundesstraße to be designed like this in the first place, they always optimise for traffic flow and don't care for a few parking spots more or less, that's usually more a city admin concern.
It'd be even better for the tram to just push the car put of the way, and then hold the car owner responsible for any damage that results.
Agree. In plenty of big EU cities, the tram driver would just call a number, and the car gets towed in 15 minutes. We can’t expect everybody to obey the laws out of kindness to others. For some, enforcement in needed
15 minutes is a way too looooong time for this. A good network has a tram every 5-10 minutes, that's already a big tram Stau and a lot of missed connections for passengers. There just shouldn't be street side parking options right next to tram tracks.
I'm surprised there wouldn't be vulture tow truck drivers looking out for these cars and waiting to tow immediately.
There should be no cars allowed on the tram tracks apart from emergency vehicles, buses, and maybe taxis.
Agreed.
While I do think it sometimes just has to be a shared space, a historic or geographic bottleneck for some edge case of a few buildings being completely unreachable otherwise (also for contractors or movers for example). But then cars should be stopped from entering the section with traffic lights, tram passes, cars can pass again. Or on a whitelist basis where only a few residents can get a permit to use it. While for the streetside parking even the edge cases I can't make up
Encouraging more law enforcement on Lemmy? Never thought I'd see the day.
You're confused because your thinking stops at "law enforcement always bad" and goes no further whilst most people here are 2 or 3 levels above that, thinking "how do we use the tools we have to make things better for most people".
You're mentally operating at a simplistic superficial level of "thing X good, thing Y bad" like a child, which is of course insuficient to understand the logical conclusions of those operating at the level of Principles ("what should be done which is best for the greatest number").
Mind you, populists just looove people who think like you do because they're so easy to give the run-around.
Completely unnecessary ad hominem, which happens to be completely incorrect because you lept to conclusions about me based on a tiny joke comment.
Go fuck yourself.
would it be a controversial opinion that those trams should be strong enough to ram and move those cars, the owner is then responsible to pay for the fines, damages to his own vehicle, and whatever damages the ramming has caused to the tram.
Not controversial at all.
It's already established law that firefighters can shatter the windows of your car and drag the fire hose through it if you park in front of a hydrant.
100% controversial! There could be someone I side. you can't just ram stuff. The firefighters stuff is a controlled operation while trying to save lives. But endangering people is non acceptable
Well obviously they shouldn't just ram it before even checking, but if someone goes up to it, sees nobody inside, knocks on the window, and nobody responds, they should absolutely have the ability to forcefully, even if it causes damage, move the car.
Whether that's by ramming the tram itself into it (which I assume would require changes to the front for safety against damaging the tram itself) or by using some sort of tool that can push it (e.g. something that hooks onto the rails for grip and uses hydraulics to push the car out of the way), damage is acceptable if you decide your bad parking decisions are justified over every single tram rider's ability to get around, and a ton of money spent to move your car.
At what speeds do you think, a tram, that has stopped and started moving, is going?
The only danger could be to the people standing behind the car, on the sidewalk. But, I think, with enough train horn before the push, it should be safe enough.
I'm thinking the tram would slow down and gently push the car out of the way, with horn warnings before.
and if pushing the car damages another car, then the person who parked wrong is liable.
Although it's funny to imagine. it shouldn't be a "full speed ahead brace for impact".
Yep!
Cars gently pushing other cars when parking is not uncommon where I'm from.
Bumpers are made from plastic for a reason.
They most likely are, but they are also full of passengers.
I'm thinking slowly pushing it safely.
not too ram it at full speed. although that would be fun.
ACCELERATE TO RAMMING SPEED, ENSIGN!
And running over loose metal parts and carbon fiber is mechanically undesirable.
Bill the driver who parked on the way.
CowCar catcherthat's what they are called!
And Mythbusters proved it can work: https://youtu.be/WK6NBsWOi7A
who wouldn't want that in the middle of the city..
not being sarcastic, I do want that
It doesn’t need to fling the cars onto the tram. That might damage the tram.
Just nudge them out of the way with no concern for their vehicle.
And if the car damages something else on the side of the road, hold its owner responsible for those damages too.
If they didn’t want to be held responsible they shouldn’t have parked in a tram line 🤷♂️
I know in Melbourne at least, trams collide with cars pretty frequently. For some reason people think it's a good idea to u-turn when they're approaching. The trams rarely seem to be damaged. It's not fun for passengers though.
Maybe the next World Tram Championships should add an event: the Car Toss. That would help people visualise the consequences of leaving vehicles too close to tracks.
The driver should be able to use the PA to announce "this is your driver, prepare for ramming speed, brace for impact"... But the trams should also be equipped with something that could key cars parked close to the tracks. That way nobody would chance it parking a little close.
I don't mean like a machete, that would probably not go over well at the stops. Just something that would scratch any car coming with 5cm of the tram.
the scratching thing is just punitive, if someone parked in a safe distance then it's fine, if they aren't, then fuck em, ruin their car.
adding a device that would cause damage for the sake of it seems too extra.
and whenever the driver says "brace for impact" I'm sure all the passengers will clap and love it.
That's actually a good idea. Put some retractable Houston swangers on that shit. People will give you a very wide birth
In the spirit of controversial opinions, wouldn't those cars be the best targets for robbery?
You go in the night, break in, steal some shit, then in the morning the police come and move the car, theft is hard to solve as it is, the added confusion must be helpful for the robber.
Good idea. It should be legal to steal cars that are parked on the tracks.
The problem solves itself
not sure how it relates?
if park on the tram path you get your car hit by a tram and robbed?
more incentive not to park there.
Yes, that was my general idea, but also was an intrusive thought, there are better ways to discourage this behavior i think.
If I'm not mistaken, that's the case in Brussels:
Trams ALWAYS have priority. Whatever happens, if a car collid with a tram, the car is at fault.A friend who used to live there told me its true even if the car is empty and the tram hit it... Repeteadly...Edit: see below comment, much more complete answer!
Lol I cracked. Thank you for sharing
In Belgium it works like this: If the tram could seemingly pass, but the tram driver was mistaken, then the car owner + insurance has to pay the tram company for the damage/delay/towing. If the tram driver has to stop and wait for the car to get towed, then the car owner + their insurance have to pay for towing costs + the tram delay. In theory anyway: I don't know hard the enforcement is, maybe they only try to go after delay costs if they are significant.
Dutch article with 2 examples, first one with car at fault, 2nd one with bus at fault: https://mijnverkeersongeval.be/nl/faq_categories/aansprakelijkheid/bijzondere-gevallen/tram
People keep doing it because they get away with it.
Put a cow-catcher on the front, like the old-timey trains, and roll those cars out of the way. Make sure that it gets covered heavily in the media, with cars left on their sides and roofs.
The scofflaws will get the message really quick, and stop it.
This is the way. Its like how fireman handle someone parking in front of a hydrant. They go through the car with fire axes. The persons doing it deserve it.
Here in Europe it's very hard to see hydrants though. There are no signs and they're just little panel-covered holes.
There are signs in Germany, but most people can't really read them.
4.5m to the right 3.5m in front of the sign is a hydrant. And the line is 100mm in diameter
I am so incredibly confused by that last sentence. I get the box dimensions just fine but
Line, 100mm²... Which is area, and diameter?
First I wrote an area, but then remembered it was diameter but forgot to take out the ²
Thanks!! I have seen those signs but I never realised what they were about. I thought it was rather some kind of tag for those people that do street measurements with those sextant-like things on a tripod. We have those big crosses on the ground for that too, that can be viewed from the air.
I think I've seen these signs in Holland too. Huh.
But I don't think it's an issue to park near such a hydrant, otherwise they'd make it more clear in the driving education. The only reason I knew the ground hydrants even existed was because once I called about a trash bin fire and I saw them using it.
Yeah I wondered about how things were there.
Can't spell Tram without Ram.
While I wholeheartedly agree with you, the first pedestrian to step in front of one of those things is going to have a very bad day™.
Fun fact, old interurban cars in the states had a mechanism on the front that looked like a bed frame that would scoop up any pedestrians on the road and prevent the car from running over them. Some even placed this under the tram but before the drive train so they could still be coupled together as needed but still not kill innattentive pedestrians
This video kinda shows a few designs but I'm not immediately finding the under train ones I've seen on cars at the Illinois Railway Museum. I learned from a volunteer at the Orange Empire Railway Museum that they were more commonly actually used for scooping passed out drunks off the right of way
Pretty sure a pedestrian-stepping-in-front-of-a-normal-tram's day isn't going to be any better.
I was gonna say: the tram needs a ram.
Big fine + towed car. Even those car brains will learn.
and stop paying for damages ffs that's crazy
Expensive tow, impound or seize car, big fine, jail
They'll learn a lot faster. Tow trucks will start to line up to tow cars too.
One of the few good uses I saw of privatisation was private tow trucks working for the State - I've lived in a couple of countries in Europe and never saw faster towing of vehicles irregularly parked than in Britain were that service had been privatised.
Virtually speaking the tow trucks were pretty much lined up to tow cars.
Probably helps if the Law makes sure the towing fees are high and the costs for the damage from towing are on the car owner.
Ontario has this on the 401 highway in Toronto. The trucks park and wait. As soon as a car breaks down they rush out to get the tow. 1k to be towed off the road, then milage. Its mandated somewhere.
I've heard biker gangs are big in this business. Not sure why.
AchBremen.txt
This is particularly bad in this German city, the city state even won a court case that allows on-curb parking, because the city is too afraid of car owners and too little of pedestrians, wheelchair users and bicycle riders.
The sound of the bell makes me so angry.
Sometimes, the tram passengers group up and move small cars out of the tracks manually.
Try Munich. It's insane.
I mean not so much the tram block parking but the way the whole city is run. BMW, the IAA, the public transport... Ugh.
Having visited Munich I don't doubt your frustration but by god I'd kill to have that public transport. You even had a lot of bike lanes.
Yes, it's there and mostly OK. But:
What I am trying to say is if you need to be reliable (and who doesn't?) you still need to have a car or motorcycle to use ad-hoc. And it'll be cheaper. And also, depending on route, yes but still - often quicker. Although there will be people saying their route is fine and this all looks made up I am speaking from decades of living here now and once you have to change vehicle in public transport it will be an issue to do that daily.
We really need to get rid of BMW commuting with their >6000 (?) cars daily and bump the already (in winter totally) overcrowded public transport.
Did I mention that I had lots of infections when I commuted by public transport?
Disclaimer: all of this is firsthand experience and I subjectively have nothing against BMW or the public transport in general.
One word: Tramdozer
Or any car abandoned on the tracks becomes public property and is auctioned off to improve the trams
Ooh. Yeah, no i withdraw mine - do that instead.
The cars are impounded and then used in a demolition derby, proceeds from that go to the trams.
I like it, the best of both ideas
Trams should operate on fire truck rules.
You don't need a fine, per se, you just get billed for the repairs after it rams your vehicle out of the way.
The fact that the drivers aren't fined is what's most wild to me. Where I live they fine the everliving fuck out of you if you park somewhere you're not supposed to.
This right here is the answer. These car drivers need absolutely punishing fines if they get in the way of the tram.
In Vienna, over the last decade the authorities have removed hundreds of parking spots like this where cars repeatedly blocked the tram. Now, the number of times it happens is very low, since the spots that remain should be very easy to Park in a way that doesnt block
According to my social media feed from yesterday everyone in Vienna has to park like this
"Wild car spotted drinking water from a canal"
~ source National Geographic
Slap a cow catcher on the front of those trams and blast those mfers out of the way. Park on the tracks at your own risk assholes.
The city of St. Gallen in Switzerland simply charges CHF 20 per minute that the tram is blocked. (21€ / $25) https://www.srf.ch/news/zug-blockiert-falschparken-kostet-20-franken-pro-minute
Still seems somewhat low but maybe a good start. Looks like the longest delay here in Bremen has been 2 ½ hours which would only be around 3000 CHF if they applied that here. Yes that’s a lot for a parking violation but it doesn’t make up for diversions, overtime and the delay caused to the hundreds of passengers.
That's a whole lot of money. A single infraction should not financially ruin a person. There is no good way out.
Why not? You'd better not commit the infraction then. You are actively damaging all of the tram passengers.
People do have bad days where they’re not fully involved in what they’re doing.
A small pinch might work better to rectify that behaviour than a noose around their neck
Perhaps they shouldn't be operating dangerous machinery if they're not fully involved in what they're doing.
Perfect world vs Real world
Because there is no opportunity for betterment. You don't deserve to lose your life for that.
You can reimburse 3000 CHF in two months of work.
You asked for the punishment to be substantially larger. Also if you are poor this may sink you. Not everybody has 1.5 grand each month to spend on extra stuff.
You have enough money to own a car and disregard rules.
Yes, the infrastructure should be better in the first place, i.e. do not have parking spots there. But I guess the whole reason these parking spots are there is because people would just park there regardless if there are parking spots or not and if there weren't parking spots and people still parked illegally, they should absolutely cover the damages they caused. Keep in mind, that 2 ½ hours was the longest recent delay which caused whole chunks of the city center to be inaccessible.
One of the biggest issue with cars is that as a society we are subsidizing their external costs way too much. Owning a car entails a lot of responsibility and yet most people operate it with very little regard for their surroundings.
Eh so these are official parking spots? That's a bit weird yeah.
The problem is that cars are revered in this country as if they were sacred objects. Data protection violations: dududu! Violations of fundamental rights: depending on your wallet... But cars are always sacred. They have the halo of insurance and investment fraud, even if they are parked on tram tracks or in the fire department access lane to a hospital.
It's because your country makes so many cars. Same in the US. Cars are holy because so much money is made off them.
Where I'm from in Holland they are sacred also but it's kinda a different reason, car ownership was a big symbol of economic progress in the 60s and people have become addicted to them.
3000 CHF can financially ruin someone who's not doing very well. I'd say it's enough of a fine.
Perhaps doing it the Finnish way would be better of course, make it depend on your income or net worth or something.
The transportation company is not responsible if passengers break the windows of the car and flatten their tires. I guess doing this a couple of times and the newspapers reporting crazy team users destroying cars on the path of the train will fix the issue.
In Amsterdam they just drive on and push the car off the tracks lmao.
Put a bull bar on the tram, easy fix
How does that solve the problem of having to pay for damages on the vehicle?
owner's fault for parking there, obviously
I agree personally but just ignoring the law doesn't make it go away.
But campaigning to change the law to allow trams to strike illegally parked cars at the owners expense (including tram repairs) might change parking habits.
Yep, I'd put it like this:
the tram's on fucking rails right? SO WE KNOW WHERE IT CAN GO, barring a derailment.
if you park close enough to the rails that the tram touches your shitbox, that's on you lugnuts.
you could have parked anywhere, but no, you chose to park where the train goes.
Put a beefy metal prow on the front end, end of issues.
Exactly, plain an simple new law. Park on rails - > your car gets relocated by the tram in whatever direction it's going, either until it's squished or it's out of the way.
The car getting pushed ran into others? Nice, the owner will pay for those as well.
You can't teach these fuckwits to park properly without some force and punishment.
I like it.
ignoring the law is how any change happens, like queer people being in public
THAT is exactly the problem.
The politicians made sure the Law was set-up to benefit car owners and screw the rest, similarly to how drivers will get a mere fine when they kill somebody with their car whilst distracted (say, looking at their mobile phones) in situations which if they didn't do it behind the wheel of a car would be treated as involuntary homicide (what Americans call manslaughter) and carry a jail sentence, because they didn't have due care and attention whilst controlling a dangerous piece of machinery.
I once heard (not really sure if it's true, but damn I would love if it was) about how in Switzerland they had this car tow which was simply a big grab claw - similar to those in junkyards - that just grabbed irregularly park cars from above to put it in the tow truck and, well, any damage to the vehicle was the responsability of the car owner for having parked the car like that
Have something like that and this problem you're describing (in, judging by the picture, Bremen in Germany) would solve itself within a month as news travelled of car owners doing this shit and getting their car trashed. Then again, German mainstream politicians absolutelly are in the pockets of the car industry (all it takes is to look at how the handling of the Emissions Scandal was basically "blame some random Engineer", or check which companies get the most subsidies in Germany), so don't expect pro-people legilstation if it goes against the interests of the car lobby.
Yes and no. We use homicide too, but homicide just means one person was killed by another person. That's used more in medical situations or law enforcement reports. Manslaughter is a legal term and comes in when the state/courts are doing the whole charging part. Then there's the whole manslaughter vs murder that trips people up too since those are both legal terms. I believe the main difference between them is intent.
That's the impression I had.
My impression having lived in a couple of places in Europe (including Britain) is that legally speaking what the American Legal System understands as "Manslaughter" is in European legal systems called "Involuntary Killing", "Involuntary Homicide" or even "Involuntary Murder" (this latter is is confusing when talking to Americans because, if I undestand it correctly, in the American Legal System "Murder" cannot be involuntary as it explicitly means a purposeful killing) or the equivalent in the local language.
Anyways, my point is that people who kill other people not on purpose but as a result of being careless when they are in control of something which can easilly kill if not handled with due care and attention, if they do it whilst driving seldom if ever get charged with a charge of killing somebody due to not being as carefull as they are legally mandated to be, but instead usually just get traffic violating charge which is usually just a fine.
If you kill a person in germany by car, because you neglected your lawful duties (Sorgfaltspflichten) it is usually a case of §222 penal code (StGB fahrlässige Tötung/ negligent homicide), you'll get a penalty ranging from "Geldstrafe" (fine) up to five years, e. g. based on your neglect as with most other cases. In very specific cases (DUI, etc) the penalty for drivers is up to five years for endangerment alone! Implying a german bonus for manslaughter by car seems - ceterus paribus - not true.
But how often does it actually happen in practice?
What I've seen in other countries in Europe where indeed people can theoretically be charged like that, is that even in extreme cases (for example, a guy in Portugal which in the middle of Lisbon run over and killed a pedestrian on a zebra crossing when the traffic sign was red for driver, because he was looking at his mobile phone) they almost never get anything but a fine (this specific guy got away with a €125 fine).
In practice - for example some years ago in England - I've seen harder prosecutions against cyclists than I've seen against car drivers.
This scenario - in germany - would be 200 Euro for the citation ("Bußgeld"), just for using the phone while driving. The combined charges for negligent homicide should be much higher.
Which is about the price you would pay for overspeeding in the rest of Europe. In Germany it's 20e, basically a parking fine. And that's not accounting for local cost of life.
Traffic laws in Germany are a fucking joke
Gotta fine that shit, that is unacceptable, wtf. Weak af.
I assume the spot is clearly labeled for no parking? Just station a tow truck by the offending spot. Someone parks there they get an insta-tow. Word will get around quick enough.
Yeah tow truckers live for this sort of gig, multiple tows per day, while basically hanging out
That's only in countries where tow trucking of irregularly parked cars has been privatised.
In my own home country - Portugal - it has to be a police tow truck, so parking is naturally a complete total shit show (for example: parking on top of sidewalks is, literally and with no exageration, the norm).
That's not how this works in Germany. You cannot simply tow cars as you please as a tow truck operator, you need to be called in by the police.
then maybe Germany should change its laws to be similar to the one in Austria, where § 89a (3) StVO specifically allows "railway enterprises" (trams are railways) to remove obstacles from the road
Then have police check these locations regularly for cars obstructing the tram.
Nope, this is an official parking spot. The guy just parked recklessly and is sticking out too much. But of course you need to have parking spots in this street as to not inconvenience drivers one bit.
Or the city can tow car preemptively if they park in illegal spot, doesn't need to wait till the tram is there.
Absolutely my point.
That's what sleep deprivation does to one brain. I can see your point now after coffee 🤦
If the problem is that widespread, couldn't you hire someone to patrol this track all day with a tow truck and promptly tow away any offenders, financing the operation with the fines that are incurred?
I think the issue is that you can only bill the drivers for the towing plus any costs caused by it. The towing company will not get paid extra for patrolling the area and the 1 hour delay is usually caused by the police that needs to arrive and make the decision to have the car towed.
Yeah that's the issue, right? No way to enforce it.
The city needs to implement fines for this behavior. If the behavior doesn't stop, then have a contract with some local towing agency that gives them a larger fine (say, double) for a 5 minute response time (passed on in full to the person being towed), plus a retainer paid for with the fines.
The city could solve this if they wanted to.
There are a lot of legal challenges to solve for this kind of stuff, as far as I know they’re trying to do two things right now:
And yes they should definitely introduce fines that go far beyond the ridiculously low fines for regular parking offenses in Germany which are like 15€.
Is there any reason the transportation company couldn't just move the car out of the way? Any legal blocker to just solving the issue without having to issue fines etc?
I don’t know about the specifics but a friend who is a tram driver said that they always need to call the police first. This might be a legal thing or just company policy
Yeah, probably a liability thing. Seems dumb, trams shouldn't be second class citizens.
I'm surprised it's not possible for the tram company to sue them for the full costs of the delay: that being a tram line hence the trams not being able to pass a stuck tram, this would add up to just about all the losses of all trams stuck due to this.
Something based on the average ticket price per-passenger, the average number of passengers taken in during such a time period in those lines were the trains were stuck and the length of time period of the stoppage, would add up to way more that €15.
As a car guy (yes I know where I am - I don't live in a city though), idiots like this make no sense to me.
If you enjoy driving, you should in fact be in favor of public transit. It means less traffic, makes driving nicer. Even if you're 100% self-absorbed, you should still be supportive of public transit.
As a car enjoyer the world would be a significantly better place if the people who didn't want to drive cars didn't have to. Most of my frustrations driving are caused by too many people on the roads and people that clearly could give less of a shit about driving a vehicle but have no other option. All my friends in the car community are in agreement on that
This is really something that should be pushed way way more
You're bi and that's totaly okay! I also like my car and enjoy decent public transportation and walkable cities.
New bi pride just dropped
Same for bicycle lanes. I've had people pull up and stop right on my lane in front of me, fully expecting me to go around them while exposing myself to oncoming traffic instead of waiting 5 seconds for me to pass.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzE-IMaegzQ&t=124
Wait, how is the vehicle on rails responsible for hitting anything that isn't moving?
Surprised. In Belgium it is a minimum of 150 for the first parking violation.
Going up by 100 each time.
Blocking the tram is a more severe one, 400+
Blocking the tram should absolutely carry a crippling fine.
Well it's something you don't do again soon.
Still doesn't compare to blocking a train.
Every minute it's stopped costs a fortune.
If you're the cause you could be in debt for life.
should scale by the number of people inconvenienced on the train.
400 what, Euro I assume?
Waffles
400 Watt
400 holmes, the british sequel to 300.
in Belgium, so yes
Belgium was in your first comment, but I still didn't know. Thanks.
Just fine those fuckers till the fuckers ain't fine.
Give the tram operator a high-vis vest for the invulnerability buff, a set of orange retractable belt stanchions to create an impermeable barrier for innocent passersby, and enough TNT to clear the obstruction. May need to mend the tracks a little depending on placement constraints but it'll solve the problem at 69 hectometers per second.
Tram should be allowed to ram them.
Armour the front of the trams and let slip the dings of war.
The amount of drives I've seen who are completely incapable of parking within generously sized painted parking spaces is genuinely concerning. You can even see in the above photo that it's parked over a foot away from the curb so the driver really parked like shit and some lines on the road probably wouldn't make any difference
The fact is, most people shouldn't be driving. That's not an individual criticism its an objective condition.
Which is why we need trains and hi quality public transit!
It's also better really.
I used to live in a place where I needed a car to go anywhere because the buses were so unreliable, infrequent and useless (all going through the town centre with lots of delays). I hated it, because everyone drove and was stuck in traffic. Driving is very stressful too.
And now I live in a big city, have really dense public transport for 20 bucks a month flat. No more finding and paying for parking spaces. Being able to go back from a different place than I arrived. No more parking meters timing out. No more maintenance. No more fuel costs. No more insurance. No more traffic fines. No more yearly inspections. No more people damaging my ride with shopping carts. I love it honestly. And to top it all off I can ride while playing with my phone and not having to pay any attention to the road. No need to be sober either for that matter.
Quality quickly drops off leaving the city unfortunately but that's the thing with cities, you rarely need to leave them anyway.
Show them some love (porcelain chunks), and word will spread.
Just a quick heads up, ninja rocks do not work with modern car windows.
What's the difference? I'm not a glass expert over here, is there some kind of fundamental difference?
I'm not either. I read a few articles when I thought about buying a Tesla back when and the lamination on the outside of their windows seems to make the glass much more durable.
From what I gather most car manufacturers today do the same lamination trick.
Good to know, I'll have to keep it in mind when looking over older vs. newer vehicles.
the correct term here. If they don't understand parking, they should not have a driving license. If they do, it's intentional.
When losing a driver's license means losing a job and access to groceries, the standards have to be lowered. Even as low as they are, people with suspended licenses still mostly drive, because our infrastructure requires it to live. Better public transit is the only path to giving bad drivers a way to participate in society without having to drive.
No. You don't get a license to kill others with your car in order to survive.
Sounds like a good place to work as a tow truck operator.
Riders should get out and kick in the windows, imo.
But seriously the city created this problem by not bumping out the curb to the area that shouldn't be parked in.
If you want to take things into your own hands: paint a no parking area on the ground there (diagonal lines in a box) and steal a no parking sign from elsewhere and plant it there if there's not already one so cops will ticket these people.
And keep a tow truck on call until the rules stick.
You tow them and make the fine properly punitive. Even then it will still happen - cars parked in clearways here get towed all the time.
$/€100 fine that doubles every minute the tram is impeded.
Scale it to personal wealth
0.1% yearly income, doubling each minute.
3.2% after 5 minutes. 102.4% after 10 minutes.
Exponential growth is a motherfucker.
You absolutely did and I admire that, apologies for inadvertantly giving the owning class an out. Wealth it is!
Whoa and that in Germany where people are pretty law-abiding.
Not when it comes to cars
Yes but they simply don't know how to park. My apartment used to oversee a parking lot and a relatively narrow two-way road with cars parked either side and I've seen everything 😂
Even professional drivers with trucks etc that you'd think would know the dimensions of their vehicle... It was so fun to watch them struggle when a car would come from the other direction and when there was heaps of space for both to pass, or watching them trying to maneuver into an amply spaced parking spot lol
I can tell you these people wouldn't last a day in southern Europe or south east Asia where you need to be precise 😂😂
No. Germany is the car nation of Europe.
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Subscribed! No idea why I wasn’t in this community yet
If I ran a tire company there, I'd follow the tram for easy catches. It so they not have "violators will be towed at owner's expense" rules over there?
Screw that! The tram needs to take that mirror clear off!
Everybody here is suggesting the train rams the car, but it's liable for damages.
Who knows who flipped that car though. Some guys who left?
Firestarter block the top of one of the front tires of the vehicle. Light it discreetly. Wear a hoodie with an N5 mask on, always look towards the ground. When you get home burn/dispose of your clothes. Problem solved.
Your comment is on the edge of violating the lemmy.world ToS (section 8.1, last bullet point) and I very nearly removed it. Dial it back, please.
But I'm replying instead because I want to point out that, in addition to being illegal and ill-advised, it more importantly fails to solve the problem because the charred husk of the car will still be blocking the tram! That's what makes it fundamentally different from the other suggestions in this thread for the tram to ram the offending car to push it out of the way.
Where i like there was a time the police would routinely drive main routes of public transit along with the (pubic-ish) transit company - same car even - and flag cars for towing.
Haven't seen many cars requiring towing since, but it does still happen from time to time.
IMO, as a driver, tow them. There should be a city ordnance in place that as soon as a tram needs to stop because of a poorly parked vehicle, they call for a tow immediately. If you get back to your car before the tow truck shows up, you can avoid being towed by simply getting the fuck out of the way. If not, good luck idiot.
There should be zero tolerance for this kind of fuckary.
I think this is more fuck shitty drivers/parkers, than it is fuck cars. You can have a car, and not park like an asshole. Shit like this, needs to be ticketed HARD. Like "If you block the tram/bus lane, you WILL be fined FROM(not upto) £1000 per minute that the tram/bus is delayed.". If people cant park properly on their own, fuck um. Make them do it in the way they will feel. If you want to get the rich assholes, gauge the fine by post code. The better the post code, the higher the starting point of the fine.
I mean, it's only fair. Responsible cyclists are expected to answer for the behavior of shitty cyclists, motor or pedal regardless, why should cars and their drivers get a pass?
I don't know about your city, but getting towed away can cost you between 150 and 500 (diffent in every city) plus the fine (parking on a tram lane) 120 plus about 25 for every night your car is not picked up. So people avoid that.
When I just got my drivers license I came home one night and found a free parking spot, felt like the last one. When I needed my car about a week later it was gone. Went to the police to report it as stolen, turned out it was towed. I accidentally parked on a reseved spot that you are not allowed to park in. Pretty dumb but it was an honest mistake. The fine was about twice what I earned a month from my partime job as a student. It really sucked, but it was a good lesson.
Where I live this is the norm.
Was regst du dich so auf, der musste doch nur mal schnell [...].
/s
Need to put some bumpers on them and just ram it out of the way
Same in Zagreb. Recently one car blocked the traffic for over an hour.
Stick a push skiff on the tram and ram the cars out of the way, problem solved. If you didn't want your car damaged you shouldn't have been an asshole.
needs more of this
This seems to be in germany: There is already a 70 Euro fine for parking on tram tracks, someone has to report it though... Additionally the driver of the car is liable for civil damages which can reach thousands of euros, including full payment for alternative transportation by busses etc.
You can argue as long as you want: In every one of those cars is probably an inconsiderate person but the whole concept of a tram is flawed. There is a practically unlimited amount of possible infractions, everyone makes a bad judgement at some time, but the tram simply cannot deviate like a few centimetres to the left. If you want a useful system on tracks you need to reduce complexity and burrow it underground or lift it up on stilts. And even then, every fault is potentially a dead stop of whole parts of the system. And i do not even account for the A****les who just don't give a shit or act on purpose.
One might call for more repelling, more drastic measures, but one simply cannot prevent the simple everyday errors and lapses.
just equip each tram with one of those parking aide roombas they got in China and most of these cars should be a 5 minute fix imo
Also 70€ means nothing to rich parasites, fines need to be calculated based on incrementally rising percentages of the driver/owner's net-worth.
Yeah, I'm fully on board with income-based fines. The current ticket rates are a joke for high-income people — less of a fine, more like a pricey parking spot.
The fault is not with the tram. It's allowing cars on the tram tracks. Ban that, and the problem is fixed.
Most trams I encountered cannot leave their tracks, except that specific Chinese one. Regardless of circumstances they usually are hope- and helplessly stuck. Switch is stuck? Well, every tram driver gets out to set it manually. Accident (even without cars)? Well it's not like you will drive around the site. Broken catenary? Out of luck, again. The system "tram" can hardly mitigate any faults or emergencies, therefore it is flawed IMHO.
btw: Cars are not allowed to park (vulgo: banned) on the tram tracks. There is also plenty of tracks, where cars are not even allowed to drive on (seceded, underground or elevated).
Those problems are incredibly rare on a well designed tram system. Trams are simple machines, and therefore incredibly reliable when well maintained. Not leaving the tracks is an advantage because it makes it super predictable where the tram is going, which means you can easily mix it with bikes and pedestrians (though not cars, which are too bulky and clumsy to mix with anything).
No mercy. Call police, get them towed and fined. And tow them to the most remote impound lot possible.
No mercy, ban parking where parking badly will impede public transport
Why is Lemmy out for the blood of individuals for what is clearly a city design problem?
What if we built a forklift into the tram?
Tow it off
They should ram that tram into the car
If you do that, you should loose your licence to drive.
Why? We can't tell how good or bad their driving is from this situation. But they should lose their license to park for sure.
So do they just have to hop out while it's rolling, or leave it in neutral and chock the tires?
They could have another driver take over to park. Like when the copilot flies the plane but the pilot takes over for takeoff and landing.
So they switch seats while the car is in motion?
Yeah or maybe the driver sits on the parker's lap and takes their hands off the wheel for that portion?
Yeah that'll work.
If you park like this, you obviously have not the mental capacity to handle a car.
This is why buses are superior to trams.
Trams seem like a nice idea at first, higher capacity and more environmentally friendly and all that.
But trams operate in cities. Cities are full of cars. And most cars are driven by assholes chuck.
And when you're confined to tracks in a city full of cars driven by assholes that's what you get.
"This is why having a son is better than having a daughter.
Daughters seem like a nice idea at first, they are cute and funny and all that.
But daughters eventually will go into cities. Cities are full of men. And most men are assholes.
And when you're a woman in a city full of men that are assholes that's what you get."
Thank you for that deep analysis, and for putting the blame where it should be.
I thought the gif would negate the need for a /s but i guess not.
I can't see any gif, just an image.
I don't see a car parked on the tracks in the photo
It doesn't have to be physically on the track to impede operation. Better phrasing would've been it was in the path of the tram, I suppose.
I'd say the road isn't wide enough. While the vehicle is parked away from the curb, it's not egregious, and shouldn't be in the way of a tram line if the road was planned properly. The fact there isn't enough room for the tram to pass means there isn't really enough room between parked vehicles and the drive lanes in the first place.
That picture screams to me that the tram line was added after the fact without proper planning and road management.
The car was parked poorly. The parking spots can even accommodate construction vans. Here’s an angle where you can see it a bit better.
The car is parked almost half a meter away from the curb (at least at the back wheel).
I do agree that it’s a planning issue though. There is no reason that this street needs free parking spots and if they REALLY need to be there, there should be a better indication if your car is sticking out too much.
replace car parking areas with bicycle parking areas
That's a horrible parking job. They practically need to take a tram to get to the curb.
It would be so simple to paint a line on the road! I don't see one. Get out of the car, look down, re-park if necessary. And it would make ticketing easier too. Ticket if any part of the car touches or goes into the line, looking straight down. And if the other edge of the line is the max of the tram, you have the width of the line-paint as your buffer zone.
They’re trying to do that right now with blue dots but for some reason this is not road legal and needs to go through some unnecessary paperwork before it can be approved
Whaddya mean dots? Raised bumpies? I still think a solid painted line would do the job and there'd be no room for argument about whether the vehicle was in violation. I'm all for raised dots along the line, so you'd feel if your tires were over it, help you position. But you also want the fenders and mirrors inside the lines.
in Strasbourg the cobblestones pattern is showing the tram space
yeah, why would they keep those parking spots here
Usually because otherwise there wouldn't be much space left for parking at all.
In some places, these trams are gonna run through every major route, leaving no room for parking on smaller streets, and barely any parking that isn't next to tram rails on larger streets.
If you want to have both trams and cars, then depending on the city, you might have no choice but to put parking spots there given the size of the inner-city roads.
Or they added parking spaces on a street that wasn't built to handle parking.
It's possible, but knowing modern city management, it's very likely the tram was the newest addition as people requested public transit alternatives and the city failed to properly plan it out.
There's not enough room with the way the road is setup for parking, traffic, and the tram. It doesn't really matter which was there first. Either the roadway needs to be widened to accommodate all of them, or the street parking should be removed. Especially if parked vehicles are regularly getting in the way.
One car in the way is a fluke, an asshole driver, but cars being in the way regularly means the design is fucked.
Knowing modern city management, adding parking spaces is always more likely than adding public transit. I'm sure they already had a tram network but local shops wanted some street-side parking to increase business, so they just crammed it in there.
It was the opposite in my city. Street parking has always been there, but the light rail was retrofitted into the tiny streets all over downtown in the last 5 years.
Yeah I've never seen them increase public transport in my entire life. I guess it depends on the city/country.
Either way, they shouldn't widen the streets. They should just get rid of the parking.