How is it that you can park your car on a quiet residential street, on a section of road that isn’t causing any obstruction, isn’t on a corner and is not on any form of yellow line and there are no signs telling you not to park, that you STILL receive a parking fine? Not just any parking fine, but a super dooper €50 parking fine?
I asked the policeman at the road transport office the very same question. “There was nothing, no lines or signs?” he asked me in disbelief. “No” I replied. “Well you must have been blocking something.” “No I wasn’t,” I replied. “Ahh well then someone must have made a complaint so they have started handing out tickets to stop people from parking down that road.” I stared at him blankly. After about 30 seconds he said to me “do you understand?” Of course I understood! I understood that in the Cypriot Way of avoiding idiotic parking fines, not only did you need a driving licence but you need the psychic ability to read minds! I took a breath, “yes officer, i understand that, and the residents are well within their rights to complain about cars being parked down their road or outside their houses, but don’t you think we should be made aware of it?” “What do you mean?” he asked me. “I mean how are we supposed to know not to park somewhere if nobody tells us not to park there? If there are no signs, no lines on the ground and everyone has been parking happily there for the past 9 months how comes all of a sudden we are supposed to know it is illegal to park there?”
Now it was his turn to stare blankly at me.
“You have a point” (i already knew that!) I proceed to tell him I had taken photos on my camera as proof and that I wasn’t going to pay it and I would be going to court to argue it out. He agreed with me, apologised and sent me on my way, wielding my offending ticket that I would now wait around 3 years to get a court summons to resolve the dispute.
The moral of my story is this; beware of invisible yellow lines and no parking signs. Apparently they are all over Cyprus, you just have to guess where they are!
