Every month, thousands of complaints are made across Germany about drivers who park illegally, endangering pedestrians and cyclists.Falko Geres stops his bike, takes his mobile phone out of his bag and takes a picture of the truck parked on the cycle path next to Mainzer Landstraße in Frankfurt. When he gets home he will file an online report for the driver, attaching the photos he took.

Geres sends about 70 such reports a month. His goal: that both he and other cyclists can ride safely. And when some people park on the bike lanes, that’s impossible, as the 42-year-old says.

There are many others who do exactly what Gehres does – thousands of reports are submitted each month. This is a phenomenon that is observed throughout Germany, even showing an increasing trend in many regions, such as in North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Württemberg.

There is also a stranger who calls himself the “master of complaints” and has made headlines across the country. In fact, the debates surrounding his person affect public opinion, as a result of which citizens’ complaints multiply: in Erfurt, 848 petitions were sent in March, while during the previous five months an average of 261 were sent. The most complaints in March were sent by just two people, according to city officials: one sent 360 reports, the other 216.

The workload for the authorities is heavy

The Berlin police, however, somehow criticize the multitude of complaints. And this is because the effort for greater safety on the roads is important, but at the same time “many complaints seem to ignore the special circumstances or lack the necessary objectivity”, as the police press office emphasizes. In addition, reports must be complete before they can be processed by the authorities. And overall “the citations are a significant additional workload for the enforcement agency.”

The Berlin police are also citing a 2013 ruling by the Lower Saxony Supreme Administrative Court, according to which the authorities are not obliged to process complaints sent by citizens, who were acting as voluntary police assistants. According to official reports, 34,300 complaints were mailed to the German capital last year – in 2022, around 31,700 were sent.

Last year, 54,500 reports were sent to Frankfurt, 200 fewer than in 2022 and 15,400 more than in 2021. Falco Geres, however, distances himself from the effort to file as many illegal parking complaints as possible. The 42-year-old doesn’t target everyone who parks wrongly, but simply reports those he happens to come across while cycling around town. “I don’t see myself as an auxiliary police officer, I just want me and anyone else to be able to get from point A to point B safely,” he adds.

Geres uses online tools such as weg.li, with which one can directly compose a report as an email with the photos he takes on site. In order to speed up the process, Frankfurt has created a special online platform for these complaints a few weeks ago.

100% of complaints are now investigated

In the past, due to the limited capabilities of the authorities, many reports were never examined. According to official data, in the fourth quarter of 2023, the authorities processed only 40% of complaints. But now reports filed on the new online platform are 100% reviewed. Geres hopes that especially now his constant effort will pay off.

Geres points to the street between the apartment buildings, where some cyclists are forced to weave into the normal flow of car traffic to avoid the truck that has blocked the bike lane. The truck driver is not deterred by the presence of Geres, nor by the fact that he is photographing his vehicle, and continues his delivery undeterred. There were, however, two empty parking spaces next to the bike path.

Eventually the driver returns, gets into his truck, gives Geres his middle finger and drives off, almost causing an accident as he failed to notice a cyclist coming from his left. Based on what Geres reports, however, this is perhaps one of the mildest reactions: many times he has been verbally attacked or threatened to eat wood.

Edited by: Giorgos Passas