Traffic researchers demand a speed limit of 30 everywhere

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Accident vehicle in Hamburg's Waitzstrasse 2007: ridicule and malice for "Grandma" and "Grandpa"

Photo: Marco Zitzow / BILD

On a Thursday in October last year, a senior citizen thundered backwards into the window of a jewelry store on Hamburg's Waitzstrasse.

The 81-year-old didn't want to break in, just park her car.

Parking attempts that end in a shop are quite typical for the shopping mile in the Groß Flottbek district.

At least 24 shop window and facade accidents have already been counted, and almost all of them were well over 70 years old.

So it went boldly against a Volksbank, in the middle of a fashion boutique and three times in front of a hair salon.

One of the accident drivers first crashed into a laundry and then parked his Mercedes in a flower shop about a year later.

Waitzstrasse is narrow and relatively busy;

there are numerous shops and more than 40 resident doctors, naturally a destination for many seniors.

If you don't park quickly enough, you'll be honked.

This creates stress and provokes driving errors, for example mistaking gas and brakes or engaging the wrong gear.

Fortunately, nobody has been seriously injured with the noise.

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