New Year’s Eve: It’s better not to park your car in these cities and towns

Fireworks are set off in many places in the Netherlands on New Year’s Eve. Although it is a beautiful tradition for many, the (incorrect) lighting of arrows, pots and fireworks also has disadvantages. For example, many cars always burst into flames on New Year’s Eve.

Last week we gave five tips on how you can better protect your car from fireworks. Although not all of these tips will work against your car catching fire.

In these cities it is better not to park the car or to park it safely

Some cities are much more likely to have your car catching fire on New Year’s Eve than others. Fire service figures, analyzed by Independer, show that some cities are clear outliers.

The Hague is at the top of the list. Almost one in ten cars that caught fire on New Year’s Eve were in The Hague. Even in Utrecht, you would rather not leave your car parked on New Year’s Eve or leave it well protected. 8.5 percent of all car fires on New Year’s Eve occurred in the city in the center of the country.

On New Year’s Eve, your car is much less safe in the more densely populated Randstad. In South Holland, a car burns most often on New Year’s Eve. Last New Year there were 189 car fires across the Netherlands.

Even small communities

When you look at relatively small communities, Maasdriel in Gelderland stands out. There were five car fires there last New Year’s Eve. That’s 2.6 percent of all car fires on New Year’s Eve.

At the other end of the spectrum are 260 communities where not a single car caught fire last year. Even large cities such as Nijmegen, Maastricht, Deventer, Alkmaar and Leeuwarden were free of car fires last New Year’s Eve.