Now heres a story to warm your hearts, proving Nederlands is a friggin cool country where even the Police are chilled out.
I was staying in Utrecht and needing to park my car, found a suburb on the outside of town where there were no parking restrictions and left my car there over night. See Im TRYING to abide by the law here.
I came back the next day and found the following note on my windscreen which confused me at first.
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What the hell?? It took a while for me to translate this dutch masterpiece. Seemingly there is a problem with people sleeping in their cars in the area so this notice is telling me the law in a very universal manner
- First time you get a warning and told to go to a designated car parking sleeping place thing
- Second time you get a 95€ fine
- Third time you get another 95€ fine, the give you some handcuffs (i think) and your car gets towed (to the parking place i presume…)
So I thought about this for a moment and realised I was not doing anything illegal, I am allowed to PARK here, just not SLEEP here. However, thats cool, Im staying in town. The nice dutch policeman (well you know, everyone in nederlands is high like 110% of the time) thought I was sleeping in the back because id covered everything with a big blanket. Knowing I was in the right, I left this polite note for the policemen
After that, my car was left alone for the rest of the week! Good on you Dutch police and your common sense, cheers to you!