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?
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.
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.
They’re not even that good anymore: see the build quality of the Mercedes EQS: https://youtu.be/XrwZgCLs-zs
The BMW can’t even make turn signals work anymore.
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.