Disused Renault litters Pirna parking lot – who cares?

Disused Renault litters Pirna parking lot – who cares?

A silver-colored Renault without a license plate languishes in Pirna, obviously without anyone caring. According to Sächsische.de, the vehicle has been standing idle in the parking lot of the shopping center (PEZ) on Rottwerndorfer for months street. With a thick layer of leaves and a heavily dirty windshield, the car looks anything but inviting.

The Pirna city administration has not yet heard anything about the rotting vehicle. Since this parking lot is privately owned, responsibility for its removal does not lie with the city, but rather with the property owner. On city property, the public order office could take action to collect the car. A procedure would be initiated that would initially include recording the vehicle, setting deadlines for removal and finally possible towing measures. The costs for these measures would generally have to be borne by the owner of the vehicle.

A growing problem

And Pirna is not alone with this problem. In many major German cities, the situation surrounding illegally parked cars and bicycles has become dramatically worse. According to a report by Tagesspiegel, cities like Frankfurt have already removed over 1,000 scrap bicycles by the end of October 2023 - twice as many as in the previous year. Hamburg even disposed of over 4,500 scrap bicycles. The costs for these complex clearances amount to considerable sums, which cities have to raise, often without ultimately finding the owners.

In the cathedral city of Freiburg, for example, the authorities are struggling to keep track of the “abandoned” vehicles. The definition of such vehicles includes anything that is not operational, deregistered or without a license plate. And so a dark blue Audi in a net parking space at Felsenkeller, which has been there since Christmas 2024, does not go undiscovered. This was taken out of traffic by the police because the driver did not have a driving license. The owner is known but cannot be found, and the district's environmental office has taken the matter into its own hands.

Today's puzzle puzzle

How come so many of these vehicles go unnoticed? Often this is done simply to save money on disposal or, tragically, because the owner has died and there is no successor. Scrap bikes are increasingly becoming a symbol of our throwaway society: old bikes that no longer work perfectly are simply parked instead of repaired or disposed of.

In this context, cities face the task of labeling scrap vehicles. Red dots or stickers are often used to tell the owners that they have to take action. After a set deadline has expired, there is a risk of towing. But here too, the costs are usually borne by the owners if they can be located.

It becomes clear: the problem of parking vehicles and bicycles is far-reaching and does not only affect Pirna. Various cities struggle daily to rid the streets of junk vehicles and unused bicycles.