Berlin makes an initial assessment
At first it was delayed for months, but now it is happening quickly.
After Berlin had already designated environmental zones in July as part of the Clean Air Plan, which, however, could only be activated after months of chaos at the end of 2019, 51 violations were registered in the course of controls up to the 20th of January.
Car owners were involved in more than half of the infringements and nine were committed by truck drivers. So far, the fines imposed have ranged between 20 and 75 euros.
The bans in Mitte and Neukölln, which were approved in the summer and cover road sections of only 2.9 kms in total, apply to diesel vehicles up to and including emission standard 5. However, the Berlin police did not disclose any information on the total of vehicles which were checked during the campaign. The latter was recently heavily criticised because it was accused of being too lax in implementing the requirements and the associated controls. This accusation was unfavourably even underlined by the statements of the police union (GdP): “Under these conditions it will not go beyond major media-effective operations”.