There's been another survey about saturation. Can you stomach it? Are we not all sick of saturation stories saturating the media? Well, hold it back. Don't rush to the toilet just yet. There's plenty more saturation still to be wrung from the saturated rag of tourism tossed around by agenda-setting politicians and agitators.
It's Gadeso's turn this time. Its survey into saturation discovers, inter alia, that 80% of Balearic citizens have perceived increased saturation this summer, that 61% are in favour of limits on the number of tourists and that 78% are fully supportive of the ecotax. (I am, incidentally, ceasing to refer to it as the "tourist tax"; it is quite obviously a new ecotax, regardless of what certain members of the government have said in the past.)
Let's just take the 80%. It is possible that they do indeed all "perceive" increased saturation because they have genuinely experienced it. Possible, but also subject to influence. When there is so much talk of saturation and/or massification, then that talk is going to rub off. Repeat the message often enough and enough people will believe it and treat it as gospel.
But if we accept that there is increased saturation - and tourist arrival numbers would suggest that there is - why nevertheless is there such agitation, when majority opinion recognises its root cause? This is the insecurity elsewhere in the Med. Gadeso finds that 65% of those surveyed accept this.
It could of course be that this insecurity persists, thus maintaining elevated levels of demand for Balearic tourism. A political response - and an agitator response - is therefore to seek some form of limit. But what happens if and when the insecurity evaporates? Are limits (whatever these might turn out to be, if any) to then be discarded? In all probability, no. The political agenda since the turn of the century has been dominated by a philosophy of control, even of reduction. This started, as noted yesterday, with the old ecotax and with the aims of the former tourism minister Celestí Alomar.
So, it's all a left-wing conspiracy to cut tourism numbers? Correct? No, not entirely. The "quality tourism" agenda has been one of the right as well. By its very nature it implies reduction. A current quantity of some 13 million tourists per annum to the Balearics couldn't be maintained if strict "quality" requirements were to be insisted upon. This agenda was one advocated by the defunct Unió Mallorquina and has even been voiced by the Partido Popular. Carlos Delgado, when he became tourism minister, alluded to potential reduction in the pursuit of quality and so greater returns per head of tourist population.
Regardless of left or right, why does the notion of limits inspire opposition among some? While it is hard to know definitively what "a limit" should be, intuitively one suspects that there should be one. There is only so much strain that small islands can be subjected to. This doesn't have to be a political discussion; merely a common sense one.
The problem is that the debate, such as it is, has already wandered off into radical territory. The Luddite tendency wants more than limits. It is so anti-tourist that it seems to want an end to tourism full stop. It couches its arguments in terms of the "mass" without ever adequately elucidating what "non-mass " might equate to (if anything) or indeed what, economically, would take up the slack.
The government's folly is in having allowed the more extreme views against tourism to have taken hold. With Podemos in the camp, this has not been surprising, but Més have not helped. In so doing, sensible, clear, objective debate is impossible.
A means of seeking limits is through a form of price engineering. For this, read the ecotax. Celestí Alomar seemed to believe that the old tax would achieve this and bring with it the much-desired "quality tourism". Yet, we now have a government, and a tourism minister, which doesn't necessarily equate the new ecotax with limits. Biel Barceló has maintained that the tax will not affect tourism. By implication, that means it will not lead to a reduction and nor would it necessarily prevent an increase in tourist numbers.
But the tax is bound up in this whole debate, leading one to query the coherence of government thinking. It only needs to look at the experience of Catalonia to know that a tourist tax doesn't stop growth in numbers. They have been going up there since the tax came in four years ago, and they were going up before parts of the Med became virtual tourist no-go areas. So, price engineering via a tax, unless it were really onerous, doesn't necessarily work.
A serious, level-headed debate needs to be had. Will an increasingly febrile atmosphere permit it? Doubtful.
Showing posts with label Limits. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Limits. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
Tuesday, September 20, 2016
No Future Without Limits?
The other day, a group of people gathered near the Cathedral. They stood on steps and unfurled a banner. With a hashtag, it said in translation "without limits there is no future". The "limits" was in red, suggesting a red stop sign, the "future" was in green - the way forward, so long as the red is applied.
What were they wanting limits to? It should be obvious. It's been a theme for several weeks. Tourist numbers. "Massification" of tourism and uncontrolled urbanising put basic resources at risk - water, the countryside, the ecosystems.
Who are these people? By Sunday morning, the blog - www.senselimitsnohihafutur.com - had 600 supporters. Teachers, farmers, activists, professors, psychologists, gardeners, doctors, nurses, engineers, salespeople, architects, unionists, lawyers, social workers, painters, dry-stone workers. On and on. Among the 600 some names stood out. Margalida Ramis, spokesperson for the environmentalists GOB; Jaume Adrover, farmer and spokesperson for another environmentalist group, Terraferida; Laura Camargo, university professor and parliamentary deputy for Podemos; Caterina Amengual, environmentalist (but also the government's director for biodiversity); Ivan Murray, geographer and now no longer undertaking a government-sponsored study related to tourism sustainability; Celestí Alomar, former minister of tourism.
Of these, Alomar is perhaps the most interesting. He was the tourism minister who introduced the original ecotax. Writing in July last year, so at a time when the newly elected regional government was just beginning to talk about a revived ecotax, he considered the circumstances that had led the first PSOE-headed government of Francesc Antich to contemplate and to implement the ecotax.
He said that at that time there was fierce international competition for sun-and-beach tourism. It was competition predicated (and not just in Mallorca) on the medium to low end of the market. As a consequence, it was hard to penetrate a more demanding tourism market. Further consequences were seasonality, a loss of identity and a dependence on large international tour operators. It was evident, he argued, that at the start of the new millennium there had to be a strengthening of the Mallorcan tourist product against a coming price war.
The government, therefore, looked to redefine the model of "mass" tourism. More value added to traditional sun-and-beach; diversification of tourist products; an emphasis on sustainability rather than the short-term; action against the consumption of resources; environmental conservation; a smoothing of the flow of tourists.
Above all, and here is maybe the most revealing of all his observations, was that social support was needed in order to reverse a trend by which tourism was being ever more rejected by the resident population. This trend had been brought about by "massification" and the burden being placed on the environment.
In 2001, Alomar famously, or infamously, said that in a few years the "Ballermann" (Arenal) would no longer exist. Package holidaymakers should only make up 20% of all tourists. Instead, there should be independent travellers, golfers, culture-seekers, nature lovers. It was these comments that enraged many Germans. They were no longer wanted by Mallorca.
The ecotax was finally introduced in time for the start of the 2002 season. History is easily rewritten. The ecotax failed because the Partido Popular came to power the following spring and scrapped it (it actually ceased to be at the end of the 2003 season). The tax may have been detested in some quarters, but the slump in tourism in 2002 was principally because of a marked fall in German tourism: the market enraged by Alomar's comments. By 2003, that German tourism had all but recovered.
No one can say what might have happened had the old ecotax remained in place. The revival that occurred in 2003 could well have been an indication. Or it may not have been. But inherent to its introduction, and one can detect this from Alomar's observations, was a reduction in tourist numbers. It's debatable if there would have been one as a consequence of the ecotax, even if he believed that it was a means of disengaging from a price war.
His thoughts about the original ecotax from some seventeen years ago show that little is new. Much of what was thought then is being said now. The current and additional dynamics are well-known, and one of them is the nature of the political narrative. It is unsurprising to see several Podemos names in addition to Laura Camargo on the list. The narrative gives succour to "movements". And some names on the list will be taking part in the two days of activism in Palma later this week.
Alomar had, in 1999, hoped to reverse a trend towards the rejection of tourism. He has now put his name to one of the movements fostered by the current narrative. On Saturday, the activists will hold an "anti-tourist" route starting from Es Baluard. People are invited to go along "dressed as a foreigner".
What were they wanting limits to? It should be obvious. It's been a theme for several weeks. Tourist numbers. "Massification" of tourism and uncontrolled urbanising put basic resources at risk - water, the countryside, the ecosystems.
Who are these people? By Sunday morning, the blog - www.senselimitsnohihafutur.com - had 600 supporters. Teachers, farmers, activists, professors, psychologists, gardeners, doctors, nurses, engineers, salespeople, architects, unionists, lawyers, social workers, painters, dry-stone workers. On and on. Among the 600 some names stood out. Margalida Ramis, spokesperson for the environmentalists GOB; Jaume Adrover, farmer and spokesperson for another environmentalist group, Terraferida; Laura Camargo, university professor and parliamentary deputy for Podemos; Caterina Amengual, environmentalist (but also the government's director for biodiversity); Ivan Murray, geographer and now no longer undertaking a government-sponsored study related to tourism sustainability; Celestí Alomar, former minister of tourism.
Of these, Alomar is perhaps the most interesting. He was the tourism minister who introduced the original ecotax. Writing in July last year, so at a time when the newly elected regional government was just beginning to talk about a revived ecotax, he considered the circumstances that had led the first PSOE-headed government of Francesc Antich to contemplate and to implement the ecotax.
He said that at that time there was fierce international competition for sun-and-beach tourism. It was competition predicated (and not just in Mallorca) on the medium to low end of the market. As a consequence, it was hard to penetrate a more demanding tourism market. Further consequences were seasonality, a loss of identity and a dependence on large international tour operators. It was evident, he argued, that at the start of the new millennium there had to be a strengthening of the Mallorcan tourist product against a coming price war.
The government, therefore, looked to redefine the model of "mass" tourism. More value added to traditional sun-and-beach; diversification of tourist products; an emphasis on sustainability rather than the short-term; action against the consumption of resources; environmental conservation; a smoothing of the flow of tourists.
Above all, and here is maybe the most revealing of all his observations, was that social support was needed in order to reverse a trend by which tourism was being ever more rejected by the resident population. This trend had been brought about by "massification" and the burden being placed on the environment.
In 2001, Alomar famously, or infamously, said that in a few years the "Ballermann" (Arenal) would no longer exist. Package holidaymakers should only make up 20% of all tourists. Instead, there should be independent travellers, golfers, culture-seekers, nature lovers. It was these comments that enraged many Germans. They were no longer wanted by Mallorca.
The ecotax was finally introduced in time for the start of the 2002 season. History is easily rewritten. The ecotax failed because the Partido Popular came to power the following spring and scrapped it (it actually ceased to be at the end of the 2003 season). The tax may have been detested in some quarters, but the slump in tourism in 2002 was principally because of a marked fall in German tourism: the market enraged by Alomar's comments. By 2003, that German tourism had all but recovered.
No one can say what might have happened had the old ecotax remained in place. The revival that occurred in 2003 could well have been an indication. Or it may not have been. But inherent to its introduction, and one can detect this from Alomar's observations, was a reduction in tourist numbers. It's debatable if there would have been one as a consequence of the ecotax, even if he believed that it was a means of disengaging from a price war.
His thoughts about the original ecotax from some seventeen years ago show that little is new. Much of what was thought then is being said now. The current and additional dynamics are well-known, and one of them is the nature of the political narrative. It is unsurprising to see several Podemos names in addition to Laura Camargo on the list. The narrative gives succour to "movements". And some names on the list will be taking part in the two days of activism in Palma later this week.
Alomar had, in 1999, hoped to reverse a trend towards the rejection of tourism. He has now put his name to one of the movements fostered by the current narrative. On Saturday, the activists will hold an "anti-tourist" route starting from Es Baluard. People are invited to go along "dressed as a foreigner".
Saturday, May 28, 2016
Limiting Hotel Places In The Balearics
Putting a cap on the number of holiday places in private property is likely to prove to be an almost impossible task for the Balearic government, but places in hotels are easier to control. Biel Barceló has in the past differentiated between the two types of accommodation, stating that there is (or can be) a finite number of places in hotels, a situation which doesn't exist with private property. Concerned with overcrowding, it may seem discriminatory to seek to shore up this finite number when there is such an absence of regulation for the non-hotel sector, but this is what the government will do.
Under existing tourism law there are already constraints on adding further hotel places. If there is new development, then the new places have to take the place of others. This was all part of a drive by the previous government to weed out obsolete and outdated hotel stock and replace it with greater quality, and this has been happening principally through re-development of hotels. However, the law does make allowance for exceptions when it comes to building new five-star hotels or creating urban hotels, agrotourism establishments and rural tourism hotels. These do not have to replace others, meaning that there will be an increase in the total number of hotel places.
Barceló intends to change this law by removing these exceptions. Regardless of the type of hotel, new places would have, in every instance, to replace existing ones. This wouldn't necessarily mean that there couldn't be new building, but were there to be then existing hotels would either have to have their capacities reduced or close.
This latter option is also addressed under the current tourism law. It permits, subject to approvals, changes in use, one being that hotels can be converted into residential accommodation. In reality there has been very little evidence of this happening (there have been one or two notable cases but not much more). However, such a change in use was always going to provide the possibility of ever more private apartments coming on to the market (mostly illegally) for tourist purposes.
Barceló will therefore need to consider the change in use provisions that were included in the tourism law by Carlos Delgado. It would fly in the face of all his talk about overcrowding were they to remain on the statute, as it should be clear to anyone that not all residential accommodation will be used solely by owners. This then raises the question as to what might happen to hotels which in effect become redundant. A bold initiative, might one suggest, would be to arrive at accords with hoteliers to either expropriate old hotel stock or to permit conversion into social housing or accommodation expressly for rental to seasonal workers. At a stroke issues of pressure on the housing market, as have been highlighted already this season, would be greatly lessened.
Meanwhile, the complexities of drafting effective legislation for holiday rental regulation are being highlighted in the Canary Islands. The regional government there has come up with a raft of measures designed to curb the growth of private accommodation. These include the setting of standards through mandatory minimum sizes of beds, ensuring accommodation is equipped with certain kitchen devices, towels and so on. This doesn't sound unreasonable but the National Competition Commission is taking a rather dim view. It is opposing in particular a Canarian measure that would prevent holiday apartments being in areas which are already predominantly tourist zones: the centres of resorts in other words. The Commission has observed that the likes of Airbnb currently offer up to 85% of accommodation in areas that are otherwise dominated by hotels. To not permit apartments in these areas, the Commission argues, would severely limit competition.
Under existing tourism law there are already constraints on adding further hotel places. If there is new development, then the new places have to take the place of others. This was all part of a drive by the previous government to weed out obsolete and outdated hotel stock and replace it with greater quality, and this has been happening principally through re-development of hotels. However, the law does make allowance for exceptions when it comes to building new five-star hotels or creating urban hotels, agrotourism establishments and rural tourism hotels. These do not have to replace others, meaning that there will be an increase in the total number of hotel places.
Barceló intends to change this law by removing these exceptions. Regardless of the type of hotel, new places would have, in every instance, to replace existing ones. This wouldn't necessarily mean that there couldn't be new building, but were there to be then existing hotels would either have to have their capacities reduced or close.
This latter option is also addressed under the current tourism law. It permits, subject to approvals, changes in use, one being that hotels can be converted into residential accommodation. In reality there has been very little evidence of this happening (there have been one or two notable cases but not much more). However, such a change in use was always going to provide the possibility of ever more private apartments coming on to the market (mostly illegally) for tourist purposes.
Barceló will therefore need to consider the change in use provisions that were included in the tourism law by Carlos Delgado. It would fly in the face of all his talk about overcrowding were they to remain on the statute, as it should be clear to anyone that not all residential accommodation will be used solely by owners. This then raises the question as to what might happen to hotels which in effect become redundant. A bold initiative, might one suggest, would be to arrive at accords with hoteliers to either expropriate old hotel stock or to permit conversion into social housing or accommodation expressly for rental to seasonal workers. At a stroke issues of pressure on the housing market, as have been highlighted already this season, would be greatly lessened.
Meanwhile, the complexities of drafting effective legislation for holiday rental regulation are being highlighted in the Canary Islands. The regional government there has come up with a raft of measures designed to curb the growth of private accommodation. These include the setting of standards through mandatory minimum sizes of beds, ensuring accommodation is equipped with certain kitchen devices, towels and so on. This doesn't sound unreasonable but the National Competition Commission is taking a rather dim view. It is opposing in particular a Canarian measure that would prevent holiday apartments being in areas which are already predominantly tourist zones: the centres of resorts in other words. The Commission has observed that the likes of Airbnb currently offer up to 85% of accommodation in areas that are otherwise dominated by hotels. To not permit apartments in these areas, the Commission argues, would severely limit competition.
Thursday, July 16, 2015
Too Many Tourists On Tourist Island
When Monty Python discovered that there were too many Whickers on Whicker Island, the principal problem of this Whicker massification was that there were no longer enough people to interview. By contrast, Mallorca doesn't suffer from any shortage of tourists who might be interviewed, if only by the clipboard-wielding surveyors of the Egatur tourist spend statistical gathering, while there are masses of investigators and politicians eager to dissect the consequences of the abundance of human raw material that is processed by a voracious tourism industry.
Mallorca, it is reasonable to suggest, is tourist island: not the only such island but a fairly significant one in the league table of tourist islands in the sun. It lives by tourism. It would not die by tourism - or its absence - but it would be placed under constant attention in intensive care were tourism to flee its shores. Fortunately, for Mallorca and for politicians, there is and will be no need for saline and glucose drips to be attached to the veins of economic lifeblood. Which is why politicians can indulge themselves in experimentation. Too many tourists on tourist island? Let's get rid of some then.
The least one can say about the government of change in the Balearics is that it is willing to engage in debate. In this new era of dialogue, it really couldn't do anything else. But even with such a spirit of interlocution, are there political red lines in the sands of Mallorca over which ever more tourists must not cross? Is there, or should there be, a limit on tourist numbers?
In theory, limits should be self-defining. They are only as great as the ability to move human traffic and to accommodate it, but as airport privatisation demands ever increasing volume to satisfy the investment returns of shareholders and as the collaborative economy revolution makes available a glut of private properties (to say nothing also of new palaces of four star plus or five star variety), limits cease to be self-defining: the boundaries are constantly exceeded.
Tourism on tourist island is not, and we all know this, evenly distributed. Massification is a summer phenomenon and the smoothing of distribution in order to counteract the economically debilitating factor of seasonality is and will remain a pipe dream. Mallorca comes under massive attack, especially in high summer. As is now traditional, towards the end of this year the statistics gatherers will reveal the day on which - during August - Mallorca reached its maximum population level. You can expect that a new record will be set this summer.
Geographically, tourist island benefits from distribution. South, north, east and even parts of the west (in the mountains) accommodate this spread, albeit that Calvia, Palma and the bays of Alcúdia and Cala Millor are where the spread is at its most disproportionate. There has, though, been tourist island creep. Interior tourism and some additional coastal development have gobbled up land previously not registered according to the tourism accommodation quotas (the oddly acronymed POOT). Yes, quotas do exist. Limits are in fact defined, but they are limits which exist to be extended.
Tourism creep should be advantageous, but the "Benidorm Effect" has, counter-intuitively, established that environmental and resource-efficient righteousness comes from density and concentration: it is less expensive and less demanding of resources to have tourism massification in specific areas.
What is the thinking behind the debate sparked off by Biel Barceló, the new tourism minister, with its echoes in Barcelona and the moratorium on licences for hotel development? Is it purely the environment? No, it also has to do with the intangible of quality of life made tangible via a reduction in numbers but an elevation of often elusive and often disrespectful "quality". It has to do with, rightly however, an acknowledgement that there is a significant tourism base which contributes little but extracts much. It also has to do with the quest for the grail of a new economic model, one that will result in improved pay and conditions for those who remain in the tourism industry and from a diversification of the economy. Such a theory might, however, take an inordinately long time to become practice.
This is not new thinking, though. Celesti Alomar, the tourism minister who oversaw the introduction of the original eco-tax, once spoke about bringing an end to mass tourism, or at least reducing mass tourism. The tax was not the means to that end, however. And nor will it now be. Alomar appeared to be on some form of misguided crusade. Barceló isn't. In a strange way, he is a son of Carlos Delgado: the Partido Popular tourism minister also spoke of tourist reduction through a greater concentration on the higher end of the market.
Are there too many tourists? Possibly so. But if there are, you sure as hell need to know how you will replace them.
Mallorca, it is reasonable to suggest, is tourist island: not the only such island but a fairly significant one in the league table of tourist islands in the sun. It lives by tourism. It would not die by tourism - or its absence - but it would be placed under constant attention in intensive care were tourism to flee its shores. Fortunately, for Mallorca and for politicians, there is and will be no need for saline and glucose drips to be attached to the veins of economic lifeblood. Which is why politicians can indulge themselves in experimentation. Too many tourists on tourist island? Let's get rid of some then.
The least one can say about the government of change in the Balearics is that it is willing to engage in debate. In this new era of dialogue, it really couldn't do anything else. But even with such a spirit of interlocution, are there political red lines in the sands of Mallorca over which ever more tourists must not cross? Is there, or should there be, a limit on tourist numbers?
In theory, limits should be self-defining. They are only as great as the ability to move human traffic and to accommodate it, but as airport privatisation demands ever increasing volume to satisfy the investment returns of shareholders and as the collaborative economy revolution makes available a glut of private properties (to say nothing also of new palaces of four star plus or five star variety), limits cease to be self-defining: the boundaries are constantly exceeded.
Tourism on tourist island is not, and we all know this, evenly distributed. Massification is a summer phenomenon and the smoothing of distribution in order to counteract the economically debilitating factor of seasonality is and will remain a pipe dream. Mallorca comes under massive attack, especially in high summer. As is now traditional, towards the end of this year the statistics gatherers will reveal the day on which - during August - Mallorca reached its maximum population level. You can expect that a new record will be set this summer.
Geographically, tourist island benefits from distribution. South, north, east and even parts of the west (in the mountains) accommodate this spread, albeit that Calvia, Palma and the bays of Alcúdia and Cala Millor are where the spread is at its most disproportionate. There has, though, been tourist island creep. Interior tourism and some additional coastal development have gobbled up land previously not registered according to the tourism accommodation quotas (the oddly acronymed POOT). Yes, quotas do exist. Limits are in fact defined, but they are limits which exist to be extended.
Tourism creep should be advantageous, but the "Benidorm Effect" has, counter-intuitively, established that environmental and resource-efficient righteousness comes from density and concentration: it is less expensive and less demanding of resources to have tourism massification in specific areas.
What is the thinking behind the debate sparked off by Biel Barceló, the new tourism minister, with its echoes in Barcelona and the moratorium on licences for hotel development? Is it purely the environment? No, it also has to do with the intangible of quality of life made tangible via a reduction in numbers but an elevation of often elusive and often disrespectful "quality". It has to do with, rightly however, an acknowledgement that there is a significant tourism base which contributes little but extracts much. It also has to do with the quest for the grail of a new economic model, one that will result in improved pay and conditions for those who remain in the tourism industry and from a diversification of the economy. Such a theory might, however, take an inordinately long time to become practice.
This is not new thinking, though. Celesti Alomar, the tourism minister who oversaw the introduction of the original eco-tax, once spoke about bringing an end to mass tourism, or at least reducing mass tourism. The tax was not the means to that end, however. And nor will it now be. Alomar appeared to be on some form of misguided crusade. Barceló isn't. In a strange way, he is a son of Carlos Delgado: the Partido Popular tourism minister also spoke of tourist reduction through a greater concentration on the higher end of the market.
Are there too many tourists? Possibly so. But if there are, you sure as hell need to know how you will replace them.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
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.
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.
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