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Comment by gambiting | Hacker News Reader

Coming from countries where truck transport is not allowed on Sundays - it's great. Means that if you're going with your family somewhere on Sunday it's very quiet on the roads. Also awesome for long distance driving, always plan those for a Sunday and the traffic flows much smoother. As for the idea that it moves the traffic to other days - no it doesn't, because a lot of that traffic wouldn't be driving on Sunday anyway - most businesses are closed on Sundays anyway.

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Isn't this just a somewhat arbitrary benefit for people who have Sundays free? Lots of people have to work Sundays. It seems like a lottery that some people will benefit from and some will suffer from, for no good reason.

Some EU countries or regions thereof ban both truck traffic and retail trade on Sundays – and there aren’t many people that would be working on a Sunday outside of retail trade. The vast, vast majority of the population there has Sunday free.

Here in Berlin plenty of people work on Sunday (service industry, gas stations) but all grocery stores are closed and the number of people working is significantly less than in NYC for instance. I like it this way ... but do kind of miss NY too :-)

Please no. Sundays in Belgium were awful. Nothing to do.

At least now in the USA I can go do what I want. It's like any other day. I don't need to stuff everything in my Saturday.

And if that means that I'll pass a couple of Semi trucks? No problem. Hell, I'll move out of the way for them. After all, there isn't a single thing in my hands that hasn't been delivered by a truck.

I don't get your point. How would a lack of trucks in the weekend negatively affect your Sundays in Belgium exactly?

He's implying the same laws that say you can't drive trucks on a Sunday, also restrict other labor, or make it uneconomical (e.g. having to pay mandatory overtime for weekend hours performed).

He's wrong anyway, there's no ban on general trucking on the weekends in Belgium, only oversized loads. He is right about strict labor laws, you'll barely find any open stores on a Sunday, besides restaurants, bars and some other forms of entertainment.

But yeah, God forbid you can't go to the European equivalent of a Best Buy on a Sunday, so some retail worker can enjoy their weekend.

> Sundays in Belgium were awful. Nothing to do.

I never got this? The only thing to do in your mind is shopping?

Restaurants, cinemas, other leisure activities are all available right?

You'd be surprised. I'm literally looking at a mall right now that is open Mon-Sat each week + 1 Sunday / week.

If I have 8 days off per month that literally removes 3/8, or 37.5%.

Also larger grocery stores aren't open unless they get an exception.

Perhaps traffic flows smoother because there is just less traffic altogether on Sunday. And anyway, who is operating these trucks that would be driving on Sunday if it was legal, but instead don't drive at all? If trucks aren't driving on Sunday anyway then there is little need to ban them.

I believe there is less truck driving here on Sundays even though it is legal because truckers try to take days off and see family too.

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