Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s a tow truck!
CERN has equipped itself with a tow truck to fight back against dangerous parking habits. The Security service will use the truck to rid the site of abandoned cars, which take up so many parking spaces, as well as badly parked cars, which are often a danger to other road users.
Breaches of parking etiquette that endanger other vehicles and pedestrians include cars parked in such a way as to impede visibility, for example, at junctions and roundabouts, or cars parked in parking spaces for the disabled or in areas reserved for emergency vehicles. Various measures will be taken to tackle the problem: for less serious offences, a sticker will be put on the windshield of the vehicle and an e-mail sent asking the driver to park in an authorised space. For more serious offences, the vehicle will be immobilised with a wheel clamp, or even removed by the tow truck and taken to a dedicated car park on the Meyrin or the Prévessin site. “No fines will be issued," explains Didier Constant, Head of the Security service, "but it will only be possible to get the vehicle back following the approval of the supervisor of the person concerned."
The fight against drivers who break the highway code on the CERN site will soon get reinforcements in the form of a speed measurement campaign. "The goal of this campaign is to collect reliable statistics on the behaviour of users, compare the findings from different parts of CERN with the map of recorded accidents, and set out a policy on the matter," explains Didier Constant.
The mobile speed camera started collecting data on 10 October.
