THE UK IS A PARKING DISGRACE

Hello friends, new video when I get the chance I promise. Anyhow I want to talk about parking, a subject close to any trampers heart. Im in Germany now, I ran up to Venlo last night, now as anyone who does Europe will tell you the Venlo border crossing is one of the busiest border crossings into Germany from Holland so naturally the road is very busy. The services on this road are fairly small and often trucks spill out onto entrance and exit slip roads. The Dutch have done what the British have done in busy service areas and placed bollards to stop this hard shoulder parking, but that's where the similarities end. Parking in the UK for trucks is an utter disgrace. We have services areas prepared to rip us off at every turn and for most now it costs £20 to £25 a night to park a truck, which I think is an obscene amount. Even in Kent, which is incredibly busy, what do we have? One services with utterly pathetically small parking, Maidstone, Medway which is slightly bigger, Ashford Truckstop and that place called Stop 24 between Ashford and tunnel. All of which you have to pay through the nose for parking on their rutted smelly parking areas. And god help you if you aren't in a marked bay. So back to the Dutch. They stopped parking on the hard shoulder at services and provided an alternative solution, massive, clean and FREE parking areas just off the motorway, well sign posted and signed from the motorway as free. No toilets or showers but given the choice between paying £20 for the dubious honour of a stinking parking place and a disgustingly filthy shower and a free clean parking area I know which I'd choose. The UKs infrastructure is a total disgrace. We dont even have a sensible option for when Operation Stack is implemented in Kent, they park us on the motorway.
That's all I generally wanted to say. For those of you that haven't done Europe this is one reason we speak so highly of it. Free parking everywhere and clean facilities. Im at a delivery now and delivering in the morning and they have a large parking area for us to overnight, and this is common in Europe. Try asking most places in UK if you can park on their premises, you'll just get an arsey no.
Up your game Britain, I know you never will but I just had to say it.
ONWARD
Luke Vernon
www.lorry-driver.com
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