Netherlands fits fixed bollards to stop lorries parking on the hard shoulder

Rijkswaterstaat, the Dutch roads authority, is installing fixed red-and-white bollards on the hard shoulder right after service areas, to stop lorries stopping there during mandatory rest breaks. The agency calls the practice “levensgevaarlijk” — life-threatening — because at night a stationary lorry on the hard shoulder is hard to spot in time.

Bollards are already in place at several points in North Brabant, on the A16 corridor (the Hazeldonk case), and the rollout is spreading to Limburg: the first confirmed case is the Romeinse Put service area on the A73, near Venray, where temporary cones placed in summer 2026 have now been replaced with permanent bollards.

Stopping unnecessarily on the hard shoulder still carries a fine of €320 plus €9 in administrative costs — €329 in total. The Dutch trade press links the problem to a structural shortfall of roughly 4,000 secure lorry parking spaces, mostly in these two regions — the reason, the industry says, drivers were using the hard shoulder in the first place. An industry reaction published two days later calls for investment in new spaces instead of just blocking the shoulder.

For anyone linking the Randstad to Germany, this adds to the lorry ban on the Merwedebrug, on the A27: the hard shoulder near these service areas is no longer an informal fallback for stopping near Hazeldonk or Venray. It is worth booking a space in advance at a site such as Hazeldonk or Maasvlakte Plaza.