Love bikes, hate ‘wild parking’ – Dutch city puts rule-breakers on the rack

Maastricht clamps down on cyclists who illegally secure their two-wheelers to lamp-posts or railings

Officials in the Netherlands, a country with more bicycles than people, are tackling a plague of “wild parking” by confiscating illegally stationed bikes and increasing the penalties to get them back.

This year the southern city of Maastricht – beloved of international students – banned people from “orphaning” their bikes by deserting them on the street. Now it is doubling the fines it charges people who want to reclaim impounded bicycles.