Traffic fines due by tourists

Last week Jason Azzopardi filed a court application requesting a magisterial inquiry into what he claims is a years-long racket involving private car hire companies and top officials within the Local Enforcement System Agency (LESA), which is responsible for enforcing traffic fines.

He alleged tourists driving rental cars while on holiday in Malta were unknowingly fined for traffic contraventions committed by local drivers in a complex racket operated by LESA officials, ‘swindling’ millions of euros out of public coffers.

He has also claimed that fines that car rental companies charged unsuspecting tourists were never paid into LESA’s coffers, effectively defrauding the state of millions of euros. Azzopardi also alleged that hundreds of penalty points incurred by Maltese drivers were ‘pardoned’ in such a manner.

Unlike other state entities in a similar situation, Svetlick Flores who heads LESA denied the allegation and insisted it is based on falsehoods. He even declared that he would welcome such a magisterial inquiry into the alleged fine-cancelling racket, insisting it would vindicate him.   

Car rental companies are authorised to charge customers’ credit cards for any fines accrued during their vehicle rental period. Fines levied through this alleged racket are normally uncontested as tourists could not be bothered to contest them from overseas. Azzopardi alleged that the money due for such fines ended up being pocketed by the car hire company rather than by LESA.

Azzopardi’s claim that hundreds of penalty points incurred by Maltese drivers were cancelled out by the charge being abusively transferred to a tourist driver makes perfect sense. But he also claimed that traffic fines to be paid by ‘tourists’ never end up in LESA’s coffers.

This is the point where I lost the plot.

When a hired car is booked for a traffic contravention, the car rental companies charge their customer’s credit card for the fine which they then presumably pay to LESA. If what Azzopardi is claiming is correct, the car hire companies are in a position not to pay the fine collected from their customers even when the ticket was issued genuinely to a car hired by a tourist.

If this is correct, then there is something wrong with how LESA collects money for fines levied for genuine traffic contraventions by drivers of cars hired by tourists. This would have nothing to do with the plot that is alleged by Azzopardi.

In a press release, the Malta Vehicle Rental and Lease Association (MVRLA) deplored the alleged practices – uncovered by Azzopardi – which, it said, shed a bad light on those who have always operated in the industry professionally. It insisted that it has pursued reforms related specifically to how traffic contraventions and points are processed, as it is currently a very cumbersome process which holds the individual, under whose name the vehicle is registered accountable for contraventions – and at times criminally responsible – for such contraventions.

I still cannot fathom how the money paid for fines for contraventions made by drivers of hired cars – whether genuinely or after being abusively ‘transferred’ from a private car – does not all go to LESA.

If it does not, LESA is also losing the money collected by rental companies in any case – whether it is a contravention made by the driver of a car hired by a genuine tourist or otherwise.

Rather than just denying Azzopardi’s allegations, LESA should also enter into the merits of the current procedure used to collect traffic fines for contraventions made by drivers of hired cars and reform it to be fool proof.

Harris vs Trump

I woke up in the early hours of last Wednesday to follow the debate between the two US politicians vying to become president – Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. My wife thinks I am stupid for doing so, but I could not resist the temptation.

It was worth the sacrifice.

Punters were quick to react to the key moments in the debate, with more than £1m sterling being wagered overnight. Harris was widely declared the winner of the contest.

According to Betfair, an online betting exchange, the odds took a dramatic turn during the televised debate, and Kamala Harris is now predicted to win the US Presidential election. Harris is currently the odds-on favourite at 20/21, having started the debate at 11/10.

I do not bet on anything but the betting odds are a good indication of the effect that the debate had on people following it.1 / 12

Donald Trump, who many thought would have the upper hand, repeatedly fell to the attempts made by Harris to goad him into a war of words and spent much of his allotted time defending himself instead of pressing his opponent on her weaknesses. Donald Trump claimed victory, but what happened during the debate – including the silent facial expressions of the two protagonists – told a different story.

Harris was obviously coached on how to bait Trump into saying obnoxious things. And when Trump took the bait, she stepped back looked at him pityingly as if he was embarrassing everyone by his ranting, using the televised split screen and silent microphone to muck Trump and laugh away at his absurdities. Her expressions of disbelief were indeed very effective.

She appeared to get under Trump’s skin again and again, prompting a visibly angry Trump to deliver a number of false allegations.

She invited televiewers to go to one of Trump’s rallies: “You will see during the course of his rallies, he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter. He will talk about ‘windmills cause cancer’. She added that if the televiewers were to go to a Trump rally, they will also notice that people start leaving early, out of exhaustion and boredom.

Later, she added: ‘World leaders are laughing at Donald Trump.’

Trump, obviously angry that he was being mocked, began to rant about illegal migrants eating the pets of people living in Ohio. By the end of the two-hour debate he seemed tired and frustrated, and she looked like she could have continued all night.

Harris’s jibes were directed at the concerns of undecided voters.

Harris did not just need to win the debate; she needed to show she possesses the confidence and guile of a future US president.

And she did.