A Day Out At Trafico

There are moments you dread, such as the one when someone places the words "Trafico", "coming with us" and "would you mind" into the same question. "Trafico" on its own is sufficient to make you head for the nearest protect and survive table, hide under it and daub yourself with white paint. Add the rest of the question, and you make your excuses, grab a taxi and board the first available flight out of Mallorca and Spanish airspace. Unfortunately, there are times when you can't take such avoiding actions, as on Christmas Day when the above words do indeed manifest themselves in the appropriate order and a coherent question. "Would you mind coming with us to Trafico ...?" Having just put away a fine Christmas dinner of turkey, stuffing, mixed vegetables, pigs in blankets and cranberry sauce, it is a bit difficult to turn around and claim that you will be washing your hair for the next six months.

No excuse available, off we went to Trafico, and by we I mean myself and two people who I shall identify only by their initials - J.P. and K.P. (and no, the second of these is not Kevin Pietersen). By way of background, J.P. and K.P. wanted to change their British driving licences to Spanish ones. They had already been to Trafico along with a third person who shall remain nameless (or initial-less). Forms had been presented, but J.P. and K.P. were met with a refusal to accept them and the swift placing of the "closed" sign on the Trafico desk. The nameless one, however, had succeeded in his quest. What had seemed like gross discrimination at the end of the abortive first mission wasn't, as it was to turn out.

Part of the problem, it emerged, lay with different forms, one for changing a licence (which J.P. and K.P. didn't have during the first mission) and one for changing a licence once the old (British) one had expired, which they did have, as did the nameless one. However, although the nameless one's licence had indeed expired, J.P. and K.P.'s licences hadn't, or at least K.P.'s hadn't expired at the time of the first mission. Somehow, however, they all got the same form the first time round, hence why the nameless one was attended to and J.P. and K.P. weren't. They didn't know this at the time and so felt discriminated against.

Anyway, in we go to Trafico. There is a queue that is almost out of the door we have just gone through. But, we think, we may not need to join this queue for the "caja" (where you pay) because we can go to information, a very much shorter queue, sort out the misunderstanding and transfer what had been paid during the first mission to whatever form should in fact be filled in. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case. The new form would have to be paid for and a refund got for the previous form, which was wrong. An hour or so after joining the queue, the lady at the caja said there was a slight problem because the old form was dated from last month. This would mean filling in a different form, taking it to the bank, having it stamped and filled out with appropriate details for accounts and then returning it - to the caja. And by bank, one means bank back in Alcúdia. (Trafico, for anyone who doesn't know, is of course in Palma.) There wasn't any way that the money from the previous payment could just be transferred, I asked. No, it's a different code. For a different form.

So, a new payment was made and off we went upstairs to where you hand everything over and they process the application. J.P.'s application went smoothly enough, but K.P.'s didn't, and that's because K.P.'s licence had by now expired. There's a slight problem, said the chap. As luck would have it, though, K.P. still had the form from the previous mission, the one that had been wrong because the licence hadn't expired at that stage. "Ah," the chap said contentedly, and once he had taken his photocopies, stamped stuff, he was able to say that everything was down, though to get a refund on the payment that K.P. had made, a few minutes previously, would require going back to the caja. In other words, queuing. The queue, not the same one of course, because there were different people in it by now, was still more or less out of the door. Stopping only to have a word with someone who will be identified as "Maximus" and to hear him explain that he was there to pay a 250 euro fine for having been slightly over the drinking limit (Maximus was paying a minimum fine and not therefore suffering a maximum sanction), we left, not bothering with the queue and hopeful that by going to the bank - in Alcúdia - the payment could be stopped.

I don't know if this was done, as I didn't wish to stand in another queue. Except that I had to because I had to go my own bank, one that has now merged with another and so there is now only one branch and that much busier as a consequence, and where I had to queue for, hmm, who knows how long, in any event.

What a lovely day out it had been. The weather was splendid and the new offices of Trafico (upstairs anyway) were very plush. Pity you can't the say thing about the system. Or the queuing. Would I mind going to Trafico ...?


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.