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?
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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
I was gonna say: the tram needs a ram.
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.
How can they install a track and not bother to paint a parking line on the road.
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
We’ll have to figure out why the train driver is made responsible instead of the parked car drivers.
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!
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 (dashed 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.
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
sabotage
the correct term here. If they don’t understand parking, they should not have a driving license. If they do, it’s intentional.
Gotta fine that shit, that is unacceptable, wtf. Weak af.
Sounds like a good place to work as a tow truck operator.
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?
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.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.
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.
what Americans call manslaughter
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
$/€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!
