An overly keen municipal policeman in Granada fined an ambulance for bad parking, even though it was on an emergency call out. The driver had parked as close as possible to the pick-up point, putting half the vehicle on the pavement.

Unfortunately for the policeman, the ambulance driver uploaded a photo onto his facebook account of exactly how he was parked… and the response was immediate and certainly not very flattering for the policeman.

The driver, David Delgado, pointed out that in the dozen years that he has been driving ambulances, this had been the first time that he had ever received a parking/driving fine.

He explained how he had been sent out to an address on Avenida Carlos Haya; an elderly woman was having respiratory problems. Once there and having reported back on her condition, he was instructed to bring her in to the main Granada hospital.

Trouble was that her family were not so sure about having her hospitalized and whilst they were making their minds up, the driver had started carrying the medical equipment used back to the ambulance.

And there he was, the policeman, standing next to the ambulance with his fines book in his eager mitts.

According to David, he was angrily quizzed why he had parked where he had and although David explained what was happening, the policeman asked him for his driving licence and vehicle documents.

Whilst writing out the fine, the zealous policeman told him that he should have parked in such a way as not to cause an obstruction – the driver explained that he hadn’t parked on the bicycle lane and that nor was he blocking a traffic lane or a pedestrian crossing.

“If I had parked on a pavement and the policeman had seen me having a coffee in a nearby bar, or something, I could have understood it, but that wasn’t the case,” lamented David.

The policeman’s account is – strangely enough – radically different… he had been checking a loading-unloading area when he spotted the ambulance badly parked; i.e., half on a pavement, which “put pedestrians, cyclists and other drivers in danger,” he reasoned.

When the ambulance driver appeared, claimed the policeman, he asked him to move the vehicle five metres further on, into the loading/unloading area where there was free space. It was only when the driver repeatedly refused to move the ambulance that he had decided to fine him.

Editorial comment: I am not alone in witnessing municipal-police vehicles badly parked, including on pedestrian crossings, whilst “carrying out their duty.” Just saying…

(News: Metropolitan Area, Granada, Andalucia)