For a couple of years now we have been putting together a rogues’ gallery of idiots who park their cars in inappropriate places in and around Bucharest. You can see those we have collected so far over at Badly Parked Cars.

A number of photos have been sent in by readers: thanks, and do keep them coming (this is the address for submissions). Do also remember to check the page for new additions. We add photos as often as we can; there is rarely a shortage of material in the Romanian capital.

Anyway, while most badly parked cars do not warrant their own post, we last weekend spotted – at the AFI Palace Mall – two of the finest examples of dickhead parking we have come across for some time.

Exhibit A:

Why use one space when two will do?

Exhibit B:

As usual, we will happily consider removing the photos if the drivers responsible send us an email (to the address sunt-cretin-si-nesimtit-dar-ma-tratez@bucharestlife.net) explaining why they think they deserve forgiveness.

‘Tara mea, am BMW, fac ce vreau‘ is not an acceptable reason.

These photos – taken on Strada Paris and supplied via a source who wishes to remain anonymous – are magnificent.

As the photographer explains: ‘what makes them so ridiculous is that the driver was working in the garden at the front, but had put the rear end of his van in such a place that he had to offload his stuff in the middle of the road.’

Thereby causing both pedestrians and himself maximum inconvenience.

That takes a special kind of genius.

Our full range of Badly Parked Cars is here. Please keep your submissions coming. This is the email to send them to.

Take the bus, peasants. Click for source

No, that’s not our opinion, instead it’s what we understood from reading this article (part of a series called Five Things Bucharest Should Be Ashamed Of) – written by a chap called Ciprian Ciucu – currently being published over at Contributors, a site dedicated to what can often be decent, well thought through opinion pieces.

As we write, only the first two things on the list of Five Things Bucharest Should Be Ashamed Of had been published. One was mud (read the post – in Romanian – here) while the other was traffic and pollution in the city centre. (You can read that post – again only in Romanian – here).

We can hardly wait to find out what Ciucu will also be listing; we would suggest that the city’s complete inaccessibility for the disabled, the level of street rubbish, and stray dogs should feature.

(And the fact that so many streets are unpaved… and the fact that so many homes are still not connected to mains water… We could go on…)

Anyway, let’s go back to the two things Ciucu has already listed: mud and traffic.

Mud? Yes, alongside its by-product – dust – mud is a problem in Bucharest, one which Ciucu claims is caused partly by drivers parking on muddy pavements and grass verges, and then carrying the mud around the city, and partly by construction site vehicles which are not cleaned properly before using public roads. We would add that the large numbers of mud streets which persist in both the south and north of the city must also have a major impact on the amount of dust that gets dispersed into the air.

So yes, mud/dust is a problem. Whether or not it is one of the top five things Bucharest should be ashamed of however is highly debatable. Indeed, we have doubts as to whether or not it is in fact a stand-alone problem as opposed to a symptom of a larger one: poor infrastructure. Pave every mud street in the city and our guess is that dust levels would drop massively. But we are not experts: we could be wrong. (It has happened before).

As for the traffic… Well, just how bad is the traffic in Bucharest?

Yes, there are certain intersections where the traffic can be awful – often aggravated by endless roadworks – but given that the city is so small, and the distances which need to be covered so short, it never takes all that long to get from A to B in Bucharest. It would be nice if there was not so much traffic (and improving the way in which traffic is directed around the city, and how it flows, would do wonders) but when you have so many people living in such a small space there is bound to be traffic.

In his article, Ciucu suggests that all cars entering the city centre should be charged a fee to do so (a bit like London’s Congestion Charge). This is – in theory – a sound idea. It has worked reasonably well in London. But there is a huge difference between the two cities.

In London there are alternative routes which those who want to avoid the charge can take. In Bucharest there are not, at least not right now. Work continues on making the centura (the Romanian capital’s ring road) a viable alternative, but it is years away from completion. In London, there was also a massive improvement in the standard of public transport – buses in particular – before the charge was introduced. This did much to dampen opposition. The same has to happen in Bucharest: there can be no congestion charge in Bucharest until public transport (which, despite all the odds, is better than most people think) is improved, and until those drivers simply traversing Bucharest have real alternatives to the city centre.

For now, making the Old Town/Lipscani area genuinely car free would be a good start: Bucharest would have a relatively large, dedicated pedestrian area. Few would oppose such a move.

Where we disagree vehemently with Ciucu is when he states that owning a car in Romania is ‘too cheap.’ His exact words are:

Şi mai e ceva. De unde ideea că toţi oamenii trebuie să posede o maşină personală? Dacă-mi aduc bine aminte parcă vine de la nişte socialişti-naţionalişti. Este o idee proastă. O idee mai bună ar fi un transport în comun civilizat şi eficient construit cu taxele mari aplicate şoferilor de auto personale. Eu cred că dacă vrei să conduci o maşină trebuie să meriţi lucrul acesta. Nu-ţi cumperi o rablă cu 500 de Euro, o înscrii şi pe aici ţi-e drumul şi o parchezi la nimerală pe spaţiul public. Să deţii o maşină la noi este prea ieftin. Ca să ai maşină ar trebui să-ţi permiţi trei lucruri: o parcare, o taxă serioasă pentru disconfortul pe care-l provoci celorlalţi şi un tarif la benzină pe măsură, plin de accize şi nu de profit pentru benzinari aşa cum este astăzi la noi. Poţi să-ţi iei maşina şi gratis dar să nu o poţi păstra decât dacă ţi-o permiţi.

In English:

And another thing. Where does this idea that everyone should be entitled to own a car come from? If I remember correctly it comes from some National Socialists. It is a stupid idea. A better idea would be a decent public transport system built with money raised in taxes from owners of cars. I think that if you want to drive a car you should earn the right to do so. You shouldn’t be able to just buy an old car for €500, register it and then drive and park it wherever you want. To own a car in Romania is too cheap. To own a car you should be able to afford three things: a place to park it; an expensive tax to compensate for the discomfort you cause others; high petrol prices, kept high by duty and taxes, not by profiteering petrol stations. You can get a car for nothing but you can’t keep it unless you can afford it.

In a nutshell: the wealthy, who can afford houses with courtyards or apartments with ample private parking places and who can afford high taxes and the high cost of petrol, can keep their cars. The working classes who live in blocks with insufficient parking spaces, and who would not be able to afford high car taxes or higher petrol prices, will have to sell their cars and start taking the bus.

We know that Ciucu means well (well we think he does: we are prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt) but his methodology is wrong. (Remember – we are in favour of Rovinietas for all and agree that those who park illegally should be heavily fined). But high car taxes and high petrol prices hurt the poor far more than the rich, and this is wrong. It is much the same kind of logic as that used by the anti-flying pressure group Plane Stupid, who think that flying has become far too cheap and that it needs to be made more expensive. Yes… and who would that impact upon the most? Rich or poor?

Not for the first time this week, we found ourselves reaching for the Little Red Book.

All together now: ‘A revolution is not a dinner party…‘

As for Domnul Ciucu, we suggest he reads this excellent book.

Photographed in Bucharest early this morning. We assume the car (it is the silver one which is parked) had been here – in the middle of the road – overnight.

Incredible but true. This weekend we saw at least two Romanian policemen doing some real policing, enforcing the laws of land.

These shocking events took place outside the Bucuresti Mall, where, as anyone who has driven past will know, taxi drivers routinely make a habit of parking by the traffic lights right outside, forcing two-lane traffic on Calea Vitan to become one-lane traffic. This despite the fact that there is a taxi rank just 25 metres further along Calea Vitan.

On Saturday morning however, the police were having none of it.

By the looks of things (we were in a hurry so couldn’t stay to enjoy the whole show) they handed out tickets to every taxi driver parked illegally, which will mean a fine and points on their license. Shame they didn’t tow the taxis away.

The question now is whether this is the start of a concerted, coordinated clampdown on illegally parked cars – be they taxis or private vehicles – or was this more a case of a couple of coppers looking for some easy collars to feel on a Saturday morning?

Answers on a postcard to the usual address.