City Centre Pollution Check

[Benni]

bluest2 said:

What is the country around Stuttgart like?
My friend has borrowed my Lonely Planet book so I feel a bit lost!
We like beautiful villages, small hotels and of course, good driving roads.

Hi bluest2 !
I am not very familiar with the Stuttgart surroundings, but they are rather nice.
The city is in a basin, surrounded by beautiful hills,
that´s why thery were amongst the first cities to introduce the "green zone",
smog cannot escape the basin as fast as in other geographical settings.
On the other hand, they grow excellent wines in these hills, cheers !

The Stuttgart homepage offers an english section :
http://www.stuttgart-tourist.de/index_ENG.htm
look for the "city and region" button and there is a lot to see and click.
They also offer a "hotel-finder",
but I would double-check the hotels found there with www.hrs.de ,
booking through hrs can often save cash.

Then there is the county in which Stuttgart is located, called Baden-Württemberg.
http://www.tourismus-bw.co.uk/homepage.236030.1403...

I found some road infos there, habe been on some of these roads in my biker days,
they are excellent for driving, see and choose for yourself :
http://www.tourismus-bw.co.uk/holiday_routes_in_ba...

HTH,
Benni

[bluest2]

Benni - Your have been most helpful and I will let you know how I get on with the badge (hopefully green!). Thank you for the time you have put into finding this stuff out.

However I have to pick you up on one area where you are clearly incorrect. As any right-thinking person knows, we Brits drive on the correct side of the road. It is you who has have adopted a perverse New World tradition that came about in the 1700s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driving_on_the_left_o...

[Benni]

OK, OK, but after all this dry regulation, legislation and administration stuff
I just had to throw a bit of banter into it....................
Cheers,
Benni

P.S.:
Thanks to mods for the sticky !

[r129sl]

I am going to Stuttgart next weekend to visit the Mercedes-Benz Museum. I will be in Stuttgart for about four hours and in Germany for about 10hours. I am not going to bother obtaining the sticker because the authorities cannot supply it in good time. Is this a crazy idea? Will they confiscate my car at the border? It appears that the worst that can happen is a 40euro fine and 1 penalty point (for German licences: none for mine).

By the way, this company now supplies stickers online, but it is an absurdly cumbersome process:

https://umwelt-plakette.de/int_england.php?SID=k86...

[Benni]

Hi R129sl !
I don´t know about the border, but this should not be a problem,
since the green zones exist only in a few cities.
Are you driving a mercedes ?
My boss was in cologne last week and did not have a sticker on his boxter,
but there was a mercedes dealership next to the hotel,
and they looked at his car papers and supplied him with a sticker for 5€.
Almost any good garage/car dealership can do this,
don´t know about british reg papers though.
Anyway, have a nice trip and a good time at the museum,
Benni
P.S.: Look on earlier posts in this thread,
umweltplakette page is a (profit-orientated) business,
Cologne TÜV can do it for 5€ too, and simpler.

Edited by Benni on Wednesday 30th April 00:17

[r129sl]

Thanks Benni. I shall simply risk it.

I shall be driving my 1999 SL500 (as fast as I can on the autobahnen). I shall have very little time as I leave Wales at 5pm on the Friday and have to be in Northumberland by 1pm on the Sunday. Most of my weekend will be spent at the wheel.

[r129sl]

I saw the signs for the pollution thing, but not having it made absolutely no difference so far as I could tell.

Also: does anyone obey the speed limit (where one is imposed) on the autobahn?

[Benni]

Hi PHers living or travelling in germany !

Sorry for the -sometimes delayed- update,
Drag Racing season kept me busy.

Sticker zones from march 1st :
Stuttgart, Mannheim, Tübingen, Ludwigsburg, Leonberg, Schwäbisch Gmünd, Reutlingen and Ilsfeld

New Sticker zones from october 1st :
Frankfurt am Main , meaning the "greater city area" inside the autobahn ring formed by
A 3, A 5 and A 661 (driving by on these autobahns is still OK)

Also from october 1st :
Bochum, Duisburg, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Bottrop, Herne, Gelsenkirchen, Oberhausen and Recklinghausen

Munich, too, from october 1st, meaning the part of the "inner city" limiteded by the "Mittlerer Ring".

Regards,
Benni

[leedpm]

baz7175 said:

As far as how big the zones are, you will find the signs up anywhere that the zones begin to let you know you're entering the "safe" area...I know my new Corsa is in the level 4 bracket, but haven't checked into the Monaro yet myself, but if I'm along the road to Koln then I'll just take the wee pocket rocket anyway

i have the green sticker No4 on my Monaro so i'm shure you wont have any problems with your Ro.

[darmstadt]

Only just come across this forum so some of this information is probably a bit late but for visitors to the Stuttgart area there are a few other things to watch out for:

- when travelling down the A81 between Heilbronn and Stuttgart and turn off around junction 13 (look for Marburg or Backnang,) by driving through a few country lanes you'll eventually come to the AMG factory

- further on down the A81 if you take the turning at Zuffenhausen you'll of course come to the Porsche factory but if you go the other way and look for signs to Weissach (watch out there are 2 of these towns in this area, you want the one north of the A81) you will come to the Porsche R&D centre which also has their test track. You can sit not too far from it and look down on to it and see them testing not only the new Porsche models but also a number of other high performance cars

- if you're in the area of Böblingen or Sindelfingen for any period of time you'll notice quite a few cars with lots of black plastic sticky tape over them. These are the new Mercedes models being road tested

[Benni]

Hi GermanHeads !

It is like a virus, new pollution-check areas from January 1st, 2009 are in :

Bremen, Augsburg, Heilbronn, Karlsruhe, Ulm, Pforzheim, Mühlacker and Herrenberg.

Also on the list for 2009 are Wuppertal and Düsseldorf.

So read this thread and check out the links,

as the controls and fines will be more and more in 09,

up to now they are handled quite lax by some cities.

Regards,
Benni

@darmstadt :
You come from there, german or guest ?
Have you seen the "Need a fix of TVR" thread ?

[darmstadt]

Benni said:

@darmstadt :
You come from there, german or guest ?
Have you seen the "Need a fix of TVR" thread ?

English but 20 years in Darmstadt. Saw the thread and am thinking of coming along even though I'm an Alpina (B3 BiTurbo) driver

[Benni]

Thread topic update :

http://www.umwelt-plakette.de/umweltplakette/Karte...

more and more cities are joining in this scheme or are enforcing stricter rules on their existing "environ-mental zones".

Watch out, there are no excuses for tourists, and 40€ can be spent better in germany than for a ticket.

Have a good trip in Germany 2010 nevertheless,

Benni

[paul.deitch]

ADAC magazine this month suggests that the system has had no or negligible effect on pollution levels in cities and the future of the scheme needs to be considered.

[darmstadt]

paul.deitch said:

ADAC magazine this month suggests that the system has had no or negligible effect on pollution levels in cities and the future of the scheme needs to be considered.

The figures might change this year though as a number of cities are now putting it into real effect. Previously all vehicles could still enter the zones but now they're actually putting a restriction on who can enter. For example in Frankfurt, from January 2010, only vehicles with yellow and green stickers can enter the zone and from 2012 only those with a green sticker.

[Balmoral Green]

Just got a green sticker in the post for Mrs BG's Panda, ordered online, very easy. Visiting Berlin for one week, end of October, will probably use the Panda a lot for getting around in the city.

[marshalla]

Is there any "leeway" in this scheme at all ? I need to go to central Berlin in October and was hoping to drive. Since I'm in town for a week and the offices I'll be attending are close to the hotel, all I really need to do is drive to the hotel, park for a week, and drive out when the business is finished.

Car is a 20 year old Lotus Excel with a recently rebuilt engine with very low CO and NO figures at the last MOT, but no emissions data available beyond that.

Esprits just a few years younger manage to hit Euro 2 standards so I would have thought the Excel wasn't far off Euro 2 and should be at least Euro 1.

[paul.deitch]

Not as far as I know, but last year I risked it in Berlin and didn't get caught.
I wouldn't worry, plead ignorance, and if necessary pay a smallish fine.

[Balmoral Green]

Why not just fill in the form, send the fee and a scan of your V5, and see what they come up with?

https://www.berlin.de/labo/kfz/dienstleistungen/fe...

[marshalla]

Balmoral Green said:

Why not just fill in the form, send the fee and a scan of your V5, and see what they come up with?

https://www.berlin.de/labo/kfz/dienstleistungen/fe...

because they don't give refunds if they won't issue a sticker.