Driving bans for diesel vehicles

According to the Federal Administrative Court's verdict of 27.02.2018, cities and municipalities may impose driving bans on diesel-powered vehicles.
As cities and municipalities are only responsible for the control of stationary traffic, and not for moving traffic, the public order offices can hardly control the compliance of diesel restrictions on shorter road sections. Except the case that parked vehicles are to be checked. For this reason, it remains the police's task to check driving restrictions for diesel vehicles and impose them to all or some EURO classes.

Since the police are unlikely to position themselves at the red traffic lights in order to control vehicles waiting for the light to turn green, there will be general controls or random stops of individual vehicles. A municipality/city defines clear and detailed regulations, as well as exemptions, for the diesel restriction zones: For example, the exact times and week days when vehicles are excluded from traffic.

Furthermore, for which vehicle types and EURO classes the ban should be applied. Moreover, vehicles whose special technology (e.g. direct injection) shall disappear from the zone, could at the same time be excluded.

A special feature still to be regulated is how to proceed with residents and visitors. Residents will probably receive special permits to enter the diesel restriction zones. But the problem for the visitors remains.
Which public order office wants to check whether a EURO 3 diesel vehicle regularly enters the zone for general purpose, or whether it is a “fake” stop at the baker’s shop?

The procedures for diesel driving bans in Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and other potential German cities have been decided. On 27.02.2018, the German Association for the Environment (DUH) filed a lawsuit against the Federal Administrative Court for a better air pollution control and a diesel driving ban by municipalities and won the case.

Now it can be assumed that there will be diesel driving bans in Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and other cities in this year which will affect certain zones (blue zones) or roads to be defined.
It still needs to be decided in 2018 whether the diesel driving ban will only affect the EURO classes 1-5 or also the EURO class 6b/6c.

It is to be expected that other cities such as Munich, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Osnabrück, Stuttgart will now opt for a driving ban for diesel vehicles, as they have been given the opportunity thanks to the Federal Administrative Court’s verdict.

In this respect, diesel drivers will be facing hard times. Not only the loss in value of their vehicles is constantly increasing, but it also raises the question of how and which EURO classes are still safe and in which cities we may enter in the future.