Two weights...

As my wife and I were returning to our car after a short walk, as it was getting dark on May 12, some 30 metres away from the Bugibba casino, we saw two policemen whose car was illegally parked in the middle of the road, handing parking tickets to three cars. They were laughing as they were doing their job.

This took at least five minutes. At all this time the road was blocked on one side, forcing all cars in the same lane to overtake, going on the wrong side of the road, crossing the continuous middle line just a few metres from the zebra crossing.

The police car did not have its hazard lights on. Passing the three cars which were booked for wrongful parking, I could not help picking a ticket to see what it was all about. We looked for the usual sign post with a no-parking notice and we saw none.

My heart cried out for the poor drivers, who were tricked and trapped into parking their cars in a place that was clearly a parking area but for the zigzag lines that normally preceded a zebra crossing. But the zigzag lines were obviously wrongly painted a metre or two closer to the kerb, on the inside of the parking bay, not visible from a short distance to the common driver going past.

Walking further along the road, we noticed at least three cars were parked in no-parking areas clearly marked with yellow lines, very visible to both policemen. We were both outraged since the two policemen were shirking their duty and were not doing their job properly.

Nothing happens to the coaches that park there in that very same parking bay, day in, day out, when the parking bay is clear of cars later on in the evening. The police never take action, in spite of the fact that a coach covers a wider area than a car normally does and intrudes onto the traffic lane. It is clearly a matter of two weights and two measures.

The local council should not allow this sort of thing to happen. Traffic lines ought to be drawn carefully and properly supervised by knowledgeable personnel. These lines should be there only to assist drivers to drive carefully and not break rules, by deceit or otherwise, which would be detrimental to public healthy and safety.

On the other hand, the Police Commissioner ought to make sure that all policemen do their duties properly, and fully, at all times of the day, not when and how it pleases them. Let us hope that these two policemen would be asked to give a proper and a true explanation for their choosy, dangerous and improper way of taking action, which diminishes all the good police work that is done normally and generally.