2024-03-25 23:30:16
The new hit in Germany is 18 years old, with a respectable boy’s face and a fluorescent uniform. Dear readers, let me introduce you Niclas Matthew, the young German who, armed with a cell phone, as a hobby hunts down those who park illegally in Saxony-Anhalt where he lives, but also in other Lands. What made his popularity explode was the weekly magazine Spiegel which dedicated an 18-minute video report to him on its YouTube channel which has already exceeded 4.8 million views. Niclas, who calls himself “Anzeigenhauptmeister”, a term that you won’t find in any dictionary since he coined it, and which could be translated as “big head of complaints”. His weapon is his in-depth knowledge of the German highway code. Let’s even say perfect.
The boy just needs to take a look at the badly parked vehicle and the road situation in which he finds himself to identify the infringement and establish what the amount of fine the police should impose on the driver should be. When everything is clear, he takes action: he takes the photo or photos of the vehicle parked as it shouldn’t and uploads them together with all the relevant details onto one of the special apps for parking violations that exist in Germany, then it’s up to the individuals offices responsible for public order decide whether or not to notify the offender of the fine. But that’s not all: the car park sheriff, who has been widely spoken about in all the German media and whose work has become viral on social media, as well as the subject of endless memes, often concludes the mission with a lecture to the “culprits” caught in the act. Done. To a person who tries in vain to justify himself, he says bluntly: “he could have gone and parked in the church square.”
According to what the original 18-year-old who regularly talks about himself on Facebook and now also on Instagram says, in 2023 he reported to the competent authorities over 4,000 cases of vehicles parked irregularly, in defiance of what the highway code says. In the interview with Spiegel Matthei proudly specifies: “the total fines that could have been sent to violators at a national level thanks to my reports is 140,995 euros”. To move from one field of action to another, the Anzeigenhauptmeister travels by train, always carrying with him his bicycle bearing the “Polizfi” sign, which undoubtedly sounds a bit like Polizei (police) but is not. “It’s a word I invented,” says the boy. For this reason, as the police confirmed when you were called by a lawyer “caught” by the punisher of drivers who park badly, it cannot be considered a case of abuse of authority. On February 23, Niclas, who is not intimidated by anyone, went to take a look around Hildesheim, a town of 100,000 inhabitants in Lower Saxony.
There was a lot of work waiting for him: «What I usually capture in 3 weeks, here I captured in just one day – he wrote on his Facebook page, adding – I took 331 photos of infringements of the parking ban, a record! When the Spiegel interviewer asks him if he considers himself a serial whistleblower, the young Matthei energetically denies it: no, he isn’t, a serial whistleblower is a person who systematically denounces anything, who attacks everything, but himself, who goes walking around carrying a measuring tape in your backpack to check if a vehicle is prohibited from parking even by just a few centimeters because “the law is the law”, only reports illegal parking.
Why does he do it? «To enforce the highway code – he explains – because people always think they can park as they want. Especially on weekends, everyone thinks the police will come and check. But no: people like me are arriving.” And he also adds a valid financial motivation: his hobby benefits the community: «With the 15 euros – he explains seriously – of a fine reported by me you can buy two new light bulbs for the town hall».
2024-03-25 23:30:16