The other night, it was 8:45 PM and I had just gotten off of work. The long day has its way of wearing you down, but my weariness was smoothed down by the fresh air after a long day of rain in Tirana. This is the season of rain (Autum) and everything seems to get mellow somehow. But not the intensity of work and neither the worries of life from so many sources.
The fact was that I enjoyed very much the fresh air, which sadly can be breathed only after a day of heavy rain or at the dawn of the day, which I almost never get to see since I sleep late regularly.
Nevertheless, despite the pleasure of fresh air, my mind was going off in all sorts of different directions and wondering about things that would not even want to. One of those things was the crusade which will be undertaken by the police of the Municipality of Tirana on car driver like myself who have a hard time finding a decent parking place, much less regular.
The fact is that the Municipality of Tirana has decided that starting from 25 of October it will start to lock the tires of all cars which are either double-parked, parked in undesignated areas, or on the curve side, and whatever other type of “illegal†parking that they can thing of to charge drivers fines of up to 3,000 Lek (about 35 dollars, 25 euro).
One of the arguments that the Municipality brought forth in defence of this decission was the sad fact that all the cars coming in and out of Tirana every day produce the equal amount of gas fumes and pollution equal to that of the Elbasan steel factory. The argument sounds very true in itself, and as I was pointing out earlier, the fact is that Tirana is a polluted city where you almost forget that there is such a thing as clean air, unless you are reminded by the rain, as I was last night.
In my judgement, this is another “cleverish†way to collect more revenue for the Municipality, but on the other side it does not answer the real issues facing drivers like myself everyday on the streets of Tirana. However, I have to addmit that trafic in Tirana is quite congested and the number of cars roaming its streets is ever increasing. Moreover, most drivers are ill-behaved and often do not respect even the simplest / obvious rules of driving like red light or pedestrians for that matter.
I do not claim to have an answer to this problem, for I am aware that it is multifaceded in itself, but on the other side I do not agree with such measures either as they do not provide a long-lasting answer to the issues facing the citizens of this city and country every day.
By the way, did I mention that I enjoyed the fresh air after the rain!!!
It seem like the traffic situation in Tirana is getting worst since the Municipality commenced with the new rules.