Here we go again! At the expense of sounding like a broken record, I am going to once again have a moan about the issue of illegal parking, and what is not being done about it.
I have bleated on about this in the past, but it has once again been brought to my attention due to a press release from the municipality that claims that they will come down hard on illegal parking along Phoinikoudes and Piale Pasha as from… now. They kindly gave the public the grace period of the Easter holidays to continue parking (unofficially) illegally, with the intention to now curb (pun intended) the practise of parking where you want, when you want, how you want.
I don't believe a word of it. As a broken record, I will recount once more how I have for many years watched in anger as traffic wardens select one or two illegally parked cars in a line of many, issue them a ticket, then drive off leaving the other tens of cars free to have parked illegally with no consequence. I will recount again that the majority of the time, it is red licence plate rental cars that have been on the receiving end of the fines. I will repeat myself for the thousandth time that the municipality could have been raking it in if they had either put metres on these spots or actually booked people consistently.
I don't personally know any traffic wardens, therefore I do not know if they work on commission, quotas or targets, but it doesn't seem that way judging by how many illegally parked cars they drive past. And instead of people fearing the wrath of a traffic warden's little ticket book, it seems as though the traffic wardens are actually afraid to book people. It goes something like this: traffic warden trying to do their job properly finds an indisputably illegally parked car. Traffic warden gets out little ticket book to write ticket when is suddenly pounced on by angry, indignant driver. Driver proceeds to shout and swear that they are only parked so they can enjoy a coffee for half an hour and can see their car from the café (which makes it okay for some strange reason), or that they just stopped to buy a pack of cigarettes, or that they are within their rights to park illegally for a certain time, or that the traffic warden is unfairly picking on them just because they parked illegally! Traffic warden either knows the individual (or their koumbaro) and allows them to drive off (without ticket), or warns them not to do it again and lets them drive off without ticket. Occasionally, they won't back down, or if the ticket has already been written then it is too late, but there are still a large percentage of potential tickets that are talked – or shouted – out of.
This is another one of those Cypriot chicken-egg scenarios; what breeds this behaviour – is it that the laws are so lax that people know there is no need to obey them, or is it because people are so defiant and refuse to obey laws that they cannot be implemented?
Either way, I will quite confidently bet that the next time I drive down Phoinikoudes or Piale Pasha I will find multiple cars parked infuriatingly illegally and not a traffic warden in sight, or that the game of selective ticketing will be in full swing. So, here we go again!
First appeared in The Cyprus Weekly newspaper, 17/04/15
