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Illegal parking at airports will be costly for offenders
By Charles Charalambous
AIRPORT operator Hermes will soon have the legal right to tow away illegally parked cars or those blocking traffic at the island’s two airports and owners will have to pay a hefty fee to have their vehicles released.
Hermes is already carrying out the practice and charging offending drivers €85 but according to the law it’s still illegal and motorists are not obliged to pay the levy, and even have the right to sue if their vehicle is removed illegally.
A bill has now been submitted to parliament and is awaiting approval to make the Hermes practice legal. The reason for delay was the need to define public roads, private roads, and who has jurisdiction, according to Makis Constantindies, the Permanent Secretary of the Transport Ministry.
“It was to define the nature of the fine so it would stand up in court,” he said.
“The operator [of the airports] may charge a sum against expenses for removal, it is not a fine as such.”
The House Communications and Works Ministry heard from a representative of the Legal Services
on Tuesday that the charge being imposed by Hermes was illegal.
During the House Committee’s deliberations, it became apparent that the Ministry of Communication and Works had been turning a blind eye to the practice for some time, in the interests of ensuring good traffic flows at both airports.
HERMES Spokesman Adamos Aspris yesterday told the Cyprus Mail: “We have a very good working relationship with the Communications Ministry and the police, and they both share our concern over the need for order to prevail in airport areas.”
The new bill will provide airport operators with the power to tow away to a designated area any unattended vehicle that is impeding traffic. The owner would then be able to recover the vehicle only after paying the operator’s administrative costs. However, the operator would be obliged to make reasonable efforts to locate the vehicle’s owner – for instance, via the public address system – before having it towed away.
The current discussion and proposed legal solution follows continuous efforts by the HERMES consortium to improve traffic flows through Larnaca and Paphos airports. These included introducing new road channels, moving temporary parking areas and relocating bus-stops, but such measures could not change the attitude of that minority who insisted on parking illegally, as close as possible to the airport concourse.
Aspris said that airport staff still try to reason with people, and already make PA announcements to have illegally-parked cars moved before having them towed away. “But we have so many more things to take care of, especially with the move to the new airport, than to play traffic police.”
“We want there to be order, so that everyone can enjoy equal treatment and the opportunity to use the airports safely and without hold-ups. The alternative is anarchy. People who ignore the needs of everybody else should bear the responsibility for any negative effect that might follow.”
In 2002, a government minister under President Glafcos Clerides made a proposal to the legislature involving the general use of wheel-clamps and tow trucks, but this came to nothing.
In 2005, the police took the initiative to table a bill for discussion in the House, which provided for significant fines, wheel-clamping and towing to deter illegal parking on roads considered as danger-zones, for example busy roads in town centres. Under that bill, local authorities would have been responsible for policing the new rules. That bill also never became law.
Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2009
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