Driving in Agios Nikolaos: Heavy vehicle ban

Agios Nikolaos, Greece · Heavy vehicle ban

Official name Έγκριση της υπ’ αρ. 130/2024 απόφασης του Δημοτικού Συμβουλίου Δήμου Αγίου Νικολάου, που αφορά σε κυκλοφοριακές ρυθμίσεις εποχιακής απαγόρευσης κυκλοφορίας ΙΧ στην πόλη του Αγίου Νικολάου ΠΕ Λασιθίου — σημείο 5: «Απαγόρευση εισόδου σε οχήματα συνολικού βάρους άνω των 3,5τ. στην οδό Καστ. Μιραμπέλλο» (αριθμ. 2189, ΦΕΚ Β' 4230/19.07.2024)

What applies

Agios Nikolaos is the harbour town of eastern Crete, built around a lake that opens into the Gulf of Mirabello, and οδός Καστ. Μιραμπέλλο is the street that runs along that harbour front.

On 19 July 2024 the Αποκεντρωμένη Διοίκηση Κρήτης gazetted the approval of the town council's decision 130/2024, and its fifth operative point is a single sentence: «Απαγόρευση εισόδου σε οχήματα συνολικού βάρους άνω των 3,5τ. στην οδό Καστ. Μιραμπέλλο» — no entry for vehicles whose total weight exceeds 3.5 tonnes.

That sentence is what this record carries, and it is carried because it is the one measure on the page that is complete without anything the publisher withheld: a named street, a named threshold, a named vehicle property. 🚨 THE PAGE'S CENTRAL TRAP, AND THE REASON TO READ THIS PARAGRAPH BEFORE THE REST.

The same act's FIRST operative point announces something far more interesting — «Εποχιακή / περιοδική απαγόρευσης κυκλοφορίας οχημάτων ΙΧ από τις 18:00 έως τις 24:00 και από 15 Ιουνίου έως 15 Σεπτεμβρίου κάθε έτους», a seasonal evening ban on private cars, renewing itself every year.

It reads like the headline and the gazette's own table of contents treats it as one. 🚫 It is not in this record as a rule, because the sentence finishes «στα τμήματα των οδών που περιγράφονται στην παραπάνω (26) σχετική μελέτη» — on the street sections described in the traffic study — and that study is not published.

The act says where its originals are kept: «στα αρχεία της Αποκεντρωμένης Διοίκησης Κρήτης (ΔΙΠΕΧΩΣ) και στη Διεύθυνση Μελετών του Δήμου Αγίου Νικολάου». A driver reading the gazette cannot learn which streets close at six in the evening in July. ⚠️ So do not read the 18:00–24:00 clock or the 15 June – 15 September season as belonging to the weight ban.

They belong to a different measure in the same decision, and the weight ban carries no clock at all. 🔑 The town's whole scheme, as gazetted, is six points and only the fifth is a restriction of the kind this corpus publishes. Points 2 and 3 reverse the direction of two street sections, point 4 forbids stopping and parking along one of them, and point 6 settles which of two crossing streets has priority.

Those are ordinary traffic-layout measures, not access restrictions, and none of them is claimed here.

Source: Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο, read 2026-09-25
Full citation

Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο — Εφημερίδα της Κυβερνήσεως, ΦΕΚ Β' 4230/19.07.2024, Αριθμ. 2189 of the Αποκεντρωμένη Διοίκηση Κρήτης, approving decision 130/2024 (ΑΔΑ: 95ΗΩΩΚΨ-79Ξ) of the Δημοτικό Συμβούλιο Δήμου Αγίου Νικολάου, the whole operative clause: the header, the fifth point that this record carries and the first point that it deliberately does not

Daily charge

Nothing is charged and there is nothing to buy. The measure is a traffic-regulation decision taken under article 52 of the Highway Code — the operative word is «Απαγόρευση εισόδου», a prohibition of entry — and a vehicle over 3.5 tonnes is barred rather than priced.

No permit, sticker, registration or exemption scheme appears anywhere in the act, and none of the six operative points mentions money. 🚫 Do not read the absence as free access: there is no price because there is no way to buy your way in.

When it operates

None, and the absence is the act's own rather than a gap in what was read. Point 5 is one sentence with no clock, no weekday and no season: «Απαγόρευση εισόδου σε οχήματα συνολικού βάρους άνω των 3,5τ. στην οδό Καστ.

Μιραμπέλλο». Treat it as all day, every day. 🚨 The act is not silent about time — it is silent about time HERE.

Point 1 of the same decision carries «από τις 18:00 έως τις 24:00 και από 15 Ιουνίου έως 15 Σεπτεμβρίου κάθε έτους», and a reader who takes those hours across to point 5 would tell a haulier that a 7.5-tonne lorry may use the harbour street at nine in the morning in January. Nothing in the act says that.

The hours are printed once, inside point 1, and point 1 is the private-car zone whose extent the act does not publish. ⚠️ «κάθε έτους» in point 1 is the self-renewing form this corpus has measured before on Greek seasonal acts — the season restarts each year without a fresh council decision.

That observation is recorded here because it is true of the page, not because it touches the weight ban, which has no season to renew.

Source: Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο, read 2026-09-25
Full citation

Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο — Εφημερίδα της Κυβερνήσεως, ΦΕΚ Β' 4230/19.07.2024, Αριθμ. 2189 of the Αποκεντρωμένη Διοίκηση Κρήτης, approving decision 130/2024 (ΑΔΑ: 95ΗΩΩΚΨ-79Ξ) of the Δημοτικό Συμβούλιο Δήμου Αγίου Νικολάου, point 5, which prints no clock, read against point 1, which prints the only clock on the page

Area covered

One street: «η οδός Καστ. Μιραμπέλλο» in the town of Agios Nikolaos, Λασίθι, Crete. The act gives the weight ban no end points.

Points 2 and 4 of the same decision do give end points, but for other measures on the same street, and this record does not borrow them — the ban as approved is written against the street, not against a stretch of it. 🔑 The abbreviation resolves, and it was resolved by measurement rather than by guessing. The gazette prints «Καστ.

Μιραμπέλλο» four times and never expands it. Overpass, queried on 2026-09-25 with a bounding box around the town, returns five ways named «Κάστρου Μιραμπέλλο» between 35.18859, 25.71887 and 35.18950, 25.71986 — Kastrou Mirabello, the castle-of-Mirabello street, running inland from the harbour. 🚫 The record watches the publisher's abbreviation «Καστ.

Μιραμπέλλο» and does not replace it with the expanded name: correcting a publisher's own string is how a monitor goes silently blind (D-287). 🚨 AND A DISTINCTION THE ABBREVIATIONS HIDE. Point 2 bounds its section «μεταξύ των οδών Μιχ.

Σφακιανάκη και Καπετάν Αλεξομανώλη»; point 4 bounds its section «μεταξύ των οδών Κ. Σφακιανάκη και Καπετάν Αλεξομανώλη». Those are not two spellings of one street.

The same Overpass query returns «Μιχαήλ Σφακιανάκη» at 35.18974, 25.71999 and «Κ. Σφακιανάκη» at four points between 35.18896, 25.71956 and 35.19011, 25.71806 — two different streets, both real, both meeting Καστ. Μιραμπέλλο.

The two sections described in points 2 and 4 are therefore not the same section. Neither is the subject of this record, and the point of writing it down is that a reader who flattened «Μιχ.» and «Κ.» into one name would have merged them. ⚠️ What this record does not know is how far up the street the ban's signs actually stand.

The act hands that to the signing diagram — «απεικονίζονται στο σχετικό σχεδιάγραμμα σήμανσης ρύθμισης κυκλοφορίας» — and the diagram is not in the gazette.

Source: Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο, read 2026-09-25
Full citation

Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο — Εφημερίδα της Κυβερνήσεως, ΦΕΚ Β' 4230/19.07.2024, Αριθμ. 2189 of the Αποκεντρωμένη Διοίκηση Κρήτης, approving decision 130/2024 (ΑΔΑ: 95ΗΩΩΚΨ-79Ξ) of the Δημοτικό Συμβούλιο Δήμου Αγίου Νικολάου, point 5 for the street, and points 2 and 4 for the two different Σφακιανάκη streets that bound the OTHER measures on it

Why there is no map here
No geometry of any kind is published for this measure. The act locates the weight ban by street name alone — «στην οδό Καστ. Μιραμπέλλο» — with no end points, no coordinate table and no map. Measured on 2026-09-25: the eight-page ΦΕΚ Β' 4230/19.07.2024 is 1 074 827 bytes and yields 20 240 characters of text, and that text contains no ΕΓΣΑ 87 pair and no bounding point anywhere in the Agios Nikolaos item. 🔑 This is a different absence from the one on the first operative point of the same act: there the extent exists and is withheld, held «στα αρχεία της Αποκεντρωμένης Διοίκησης Κρήτης (ΔΙΠΕΧΩΣ) και στη Διεύθυνση Μελετών του Δήμου Αγίου Νικολάου» along with the signing diagram. Here the extent was never drawn at all — the publisher's unit of measurement is the street. 🚫 The city-level warning stands rather than an outline: one harbour street is not the town, and showing the town's administrative shape would overstate the ban by a wide margin.
Petrol standard

This scheme sets no emission threshold, and the absence is structural rather than unrecorded. The measure asks one question about a vehicle — does its total weight exceed 3.5 tonnes — and that question has no emission component. No Euro class, no fuel type and no registration year appears anywhere in the act, for any of its six operative points.

A Euro 6 lorry over the limit is barred and a Euro 2 car under it is not.

Diesel standard

The same as for petrol, and for the same structural reason: the act contains no emission class of any kind, for any fuel. ⚠️ Worth saying explicitly for diesel, because a reader arriving from this corpus's Italian and Spanish pages will expect a diesel-specific rung and there is none here. Weight is the whole test.

Penalty if you do not comply
€150.00 The act prints no figure. The €150 is read from the Highway Code, and every step below was measured on the statute on 2026-09-25 for this record rather than inherited from this corpus's other Greek pages. 🔑 THE ONE INFERENCE, STATED PLAINLY SO IT CAN BE CHECKED. The act does not print a sign code. It prints a legend: «Απαγόρευση εισόδου σε οχήματα συνολικού βάρους άνω των 3,5τ.». Article 7 §3 of ν. 5209/2025 defines «κγ) Ρ-23: Απαγορεύεται η είσοδος σε οχήματα συνολικού βάρους που υπερβαίνει τους … (π.χ. 5) τόνους» — the act's sentence is that legend with the blank filled in. This record reads the measure as sign Ρ-23; it does not claim the act said so. ⚠️ If an officer enforces the plate on the post and the municipality signed the street with something else, the figure below is not what is charged. From there the chain is printed, not inferred. Article 7 §11 ε) lists «Ρ-7, Ρ-8, Ρ-9, Ρ-10, Ρ-11, Ρ-12, Ρ-13, Ρ-14, Ρ-18, Ρ-19, Ρ-20, Ρ-21, Ρ-22, Ρ-23, Ρ-24, Ρ-25, Ρ-26, Ρ-27, Ρ-28, Ρ-30, Ρ-31, Ρ-45, Ρ-46, Ρ-64…» and classifies them «στην κατηγορία Ε2-Β». Article 108 §5 β) prices the category: «βα) Ε2-Α επιβάλλεται διοικητικό πρόστιμο εκατόν πενήντα (150) ευρώ, ββ) Ε2-Β επιβάλλεται το διοικητικό πρόστιμο της υποκατηγορίας Ε2-Α και το διοικητικό μέτρο αφαίρεσης της άδειας οδήγησης για είκοσι (20) ημέρες.» 🚨 SO THE €150 IS THE SMALLER HALF. The Code attaches twenty days without a driving licence to the same breach, and for a driver whose living is behind a wheel that is the real cost. Ρ-23 is not classified in category Σ, so the further measure that attaches to Greek pedestrian-street offences does not attach here. ⚠️ And this record does not claim the Code is the only source of consequence for a goods vehicle: ν. 3446/2006, on road-transport enforcement, was not read for this record.Source: Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο, read 2026-09-25
Full citation

Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο — Εφημερίδα της Κυβερνήσεως, ΦΕΚ Α' 100/13.06.2025: ν. 5209/2025, «Κώδικας Οδικής Κυκλοφορίας» — article 7 §3 «κγ) Ρ-23» for the sign whose legend the act reproduces, article 7 §11 ε) for the category «Ε2-Β», and article 108 §5 β) for the amount and the twenty days.

How to comply
  • If your vehicle's total weight is 3.5 tonnes or less, this scheme does not apply to you on any day, at any hour. A car, a van under the limit and a motorcycle are outside it entirely.
  • If it is over 3.5 tonnes, do not enter οδός Καστ. Μιραμπέλλο — «Κάστρου Μιραμπέλλο» on the ground — in Agios Nikolaos. The act sets no hours, so treat the ban as all day, every day, and plan the harbour front out of the route rather than timing a run through it.
  • ⚠️ The threshold is total weight («συνολικού βάρους»), not payload and not weight per axle. Read it off the vehicle's own papers, not off what it happens to be carrying that day.
  • 🚨 Do not use the 18:00–24:00 hours or the 15 June – 15 September season printed elsewhere in the same act. They belong to a separate measure — a seasonal ban on private cars — whose street list the act deliberately leaves to an unpublished study. They are not a window in which a heavy vehicle may use this street.
  • ⚠️ If you are driving a private car in Agios Nikolaos between 15 June and 15 September, assume the town centre may be closed to you from 18:00 to 24:00 and look for signs on the ground. This project cannot tell you which streets: the gazette does not list them and says the study that does is held in the municipality's and the decentralised administration's own files. That is a gap in what the publisher published, not a finding that no such zone exists.
  • The act's own conditions put the measure on the ground before it binds: «εφαρμόζεται μετέπειτα με την τοποθέτηση των οικείων πινακίδων σήμανσης και των διαγραμμίσεων». Signs on the street are the instrument that tells you the ban is live.
Source: Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο, read 2026-09-25
Full citation

Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο — Εφημερίδα της Κυβερνήσεως, ΦΕΚ Β' 4230/19.07.2024, Αριθμ. 2189 of the Αποκεντρωμένη Διοίκηση Κρήτης, approving decision 130/2024 (ΑΔΑ: 95ΗΩΩΚΨ-79Ξ) of the Δημοτικό Συμβούλιο Δήμου Αγίου Νικολάου, all six operative points and the commencement clause «εφαρμόζεται μετέπειτα με την τοποθέτηση των οικείων πινακίδων σήμανσης»

Sources

Next scheduled re-check: 2026-12-25.

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