Understanding Unique Parking Restrictions (PART 4: Germany)
Hello, fellow parking enthusiast! As always, we hope you are continuing to be in good health and staying safe during these unprecedented times.
With travel continuing to remain somewhat restricted throughout most parts of the world, we at Parknav are laser-focused on ensuring we continue to both inform and prepare you for your future parking expeditions abroad via our “Understanding Unique Parking Restrictions” Series (…PS, If you have missed any of our AMAZING previous blogs from this Series and want to catch up, you can find them here). For this week’s parking destination, we wanted to take you directly to the heart of the European automotive industry…also known as Germany!
In Germany, rules, structure and organization are deeply ingrained into the DNA of the culture resulting in generally more predictable outcomes. However, for first time visitors, some of the (parking) rules might appear more ambiguous at first glance. What are we talking about? Let’s see:
Unlike the majority of Europe, the road authorities in Germany use arrows on signs to signal the “Beginning” and “Ending” of parking and other restrictions. In the example above, you can see that there is a No Parking “Beginning” sign (which has an arrow pointing in the direction of traffic flow), Middle sign (which has arrows pointing in both directions) and“Ending sign” (which has an arrow facing towards the “Beginning” sign). The addition of arrows makes every sign very specific eliminating any confusion over where one restriction starts and ends.
BUT, why are cars are parked near a clearly visible “No Parking” sign in the example below?
Well…on many streets in Germany, especially in residential areas, you are allowed to park on one of the traffic lanes. In fact, signs can have additional “plates” (information) to specify if parking is forbidden on the (side of the) road itself or on the shoulder (sidewalk). In the example above, there is a “No Parking” sign without any additional plates, which actually lets us know that parking on the side of the road is forbidden at all times…BUT if there are designated parking spots on the shoulder — you can park freely, just as these cars have done.
If the “No Parking” sign has one of these additional plates attached under the “X” or “/” (as seen in either Type 1 or 2 above), then no parking is allowed on the shoulder. For example, if one of these additional plates was attached to the sign in Image 2, then those cars on the shoulder would be parked illegally.
Image 5 above is a great example of parking that is allowed on one of the traffic lanes. Since we can see that the “No Parking” restriction is “Ending” (as seen with the white arrow going against traffic), parking is allowed on the side of the road after (we will ignore the gray convertible 😊).
Image 6 is a different situation which is maybe a bit more confusing for first-time visitors. There are two signs — one “No Parking” allowed, and another half way down the pole denoting “Parking Allowed”. In this situation, the same rules apply as before: there is no additional plate for the “No Parking” sign which means it is ONLY referring to a parking ban on the side of the road (on the road). However, the small blue “Parking Allowed” sign has an image of a car parked on the shoulder, meaning you can actually park freely on the shoulder. If you were seeing this for the very first time, I am sure you would unknowingly miss an empty parking space and inadvertently continue your search for a parking.
In Image 7, there is a very similar situation as in Image 6; however, parking (on the road) is forbidden Monday thru Friday, between 16th and 18th hour of the day. This means you could park on the side of the road outside of those hours, but be very careful not to block any of the cars parked on the shoulder.
We hope these tips have been helpful for first time visitors to Germany. Good luck finding parking, and as always stay tuned for the next entry in the Series!
