Breathe More Easily? Traffic police

Here, especially if you have just polished off a decent bottle of red and are about to uncork a second and then intend to drive home, is something that might make you think twice about switching on the ignition. You know all those controls. You know the ones. The chaps in green, arms folded and staring menacingly from under the shade of a tree at a roundabout. They do actually do something. Not all just light up a fag and chat to their mates. Oh no.

During the first six months of this year, Trafico collared, get this, over one hundred per cent more drivers in Mallorca for drink-driving offences compared with 2009. This offence inflation does rather concur with what I was told some while ago that Trafico was one arm of the government being deployed as a revenue-generator. "Excuse me, sir, would you mind blowing into this, and do you have six hundred readies available in the event that ... ?"

I have never quite got it with all the controls. If you want better driving, then might the police not be better served, as in the UK, hanging around in bushes with a speed trap or cruising along the roads about to blue-light a speeding Seat? The thing is that they do this as well. And there are, by the way, some unremarkable vehicles which look as though they have been picked up for a song from a car auction spluttering along the main roads, their only distinguishing features being a couple of antennae stuck on the boot; antennae not designed to aid better reception for RNE radio or to act as mobile WiFi. They are speed cops.

The numbers of traffic plod have been increased, and so - one has the impression - have been the controls. Fines, for a government reduced to using a torch to hunt down the back of sofas for any lurking billions with which to bolster a bankrupt economy, are relatively easily-generated national or island dosh. Part of the thinking one might imagine, and they could of course be right, is that most drivers will have fiddled their tax returns, so they might as well cop it in some other way, via the traffic cops.

However, not everything is rosy or light green in the world of the traffic police. They're none too impressed with current pay. All those fines, and the government's trousering the moolah for itself. As a consequence, while the first six months might have produced some record bounty, the second half of the year might find the piggy bank less than flush. Plod has been more inclined to do nothing or just tick off a Jaco-m'chico tanked up and oozing a smell of Saint Mick combined with the gallon of Hugo Boss in the neck area. Trafico is its own bit of the Guardia, and this is another slight bone of contention. Traffic plod don't earn as much as others. They're not allowed to go on strike, so they're being less assiduous in pursuing lagered-up drivers. But don't, for God's sake, let this be taken as a hint that you should empty the local bar and head off for a good burn-up down the local carretera. Oh no. I, for one, actually applaud what they do. Oh sanctimonious me. Drink and drive? Nope.

In case you're wondering, the legal limit is 0.25 milligrams. Fines for exceeding the limit are 600 euros plus four points on the licence, but sanctions can of course be greater, depending on the levels and the offence.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.