Avelina was fined for a infringement of traffic that he did not commit It is not that the driver denies that she circulated too speed by Barcelona nor that he disputes that he skipped a traffic light in red. Her complaint is much more shocking: Avelina was not driving at the time and on the day stated on the sanction of the City hall.
The complaint assures that the 76-year-old woman was hooked on the Gran Via at the wheel of a car without an environmental label at 08:23 in the morning on a Tuesday in August of last year, in full time in the Low Emissions Zone (LEZ), when the circulation to passenger cars reported for polluting excessively. However, it was not possible for the vehicle accused of disobeying the restriction toured the city when the notification says: the driver had gotten rid of the car five days before, when he handed it over to the scrapping municipal, as she herself explained in a letter addressed to the Entre Todos section of EL PERIÓDICO.
The reason behind the mystery of the fine is a banal confusion. He car from which Avelina had broken away – a Volkswagen White Golf – was loaded in a crane way to be crushed. The radar picked up the tuition uncovered from Golf dragged and identified that the vehicle was prohibited from transiting at that moment. The machine – and the official who, perhaps, examined the Photography before sending the fine – were unable to appreciate that the car was not moving by itself but was actually being towed.
This is an error that, since the implementation of the LEZ in 2020, has been repeated on some other occasion, also with sporadic episodes and identical to the one that Avelina witnesses. The consistory comments that it has made adjustments in the cameras “to minimize incidents & rdquor ;. He adds that he agreed with the guilds appropriate that the license plates be covered to save mistakes. However, it did not happen in the case of yore.
a black box
The image that Avelina received along with the notice does not help to clear up the misunderstanding. Hardly distinguishable. “What they sent is a black box, with a micro-registration that is hardly readable & rdquor ;, he complains.
The consistory has ended up annulling the fine seven months after issuing it. Far from being satisfied, the neighbor still irritated recounts the succession of nonsense that he faced The nonsense reached the point of being on the verge of a embargo by municipal order.
“At my age, the situation was beyond me. It is not the same as what happens to a person young than someone my age, although I still have drive & rdquor ;, he admits. He attests that she had to fight for them to agree with her in the face of a confusion that he classifies as “kafkaesque and absurd, abusive and senseless & rdquor ;.
After two unsuccessful appeals -“they did not respond to one or the other& rdquor;-, the accused ended up appearing at the municipal office of Tax authoritiesa few days after his current account was intervened to withhold 241.90 euros for non-payment of the admonition. She fixed it the old-fashioned way, at the window and demanding to be attended. “Several officials came, they looked at the photo they had in the computer, they made it bigger… In the end, they recognized that my car was on top of a tow truck,” he says.
unlucky chain
Avelina lists a chain of apparent negligence. In the first place, he points out that the fine that imposed a payment of 200 euros did not arrive certified at his apartment in Barcelona. “He goalie found it by chance when opening the mailbox of advertising. She does it once a week to throw out the propaganda and there she found the letter & rdquor ;, precise.
That happened on the 14th of November, two and a half months after the resolution against the driver was signed. The city council responds that it tried to communicate the notification in person on September 15 and 16. He maintains that it was not possible and that, consequently, “the established procedure was followed & rdquor ;, for which reason the notice was published on September 28 in the Official State Gazette (BOE).
The consistory argues that the affected party filed an appeal on November 18, “outside the period of allegations”. The term ran out on October 18, 20 days after the ad appeared in the BOE. Avelina could hardly have appealed within the term, unaware as she was of the sanction until the doorman found it in a mailbox that only he examines.
Annoyed at not having received the fine on time, Avelina adds the least harsh response from the official which he ran into when he called the first time he tried to clarify the matter. “He told me that he had an obligation to look at the BOE and know that I appeared as delinquent at the national level. It was the worst thing they could say to me. It upset me. I don’t have a mortgage, but there are people who owe 800,000 euros! & rdquor ;, Avelina emphasizes.
Frightened of appearing as debtorhe was convinced that he would have to pay the punishment. However, he contacted the consistory again. The second conversation was less surly and they denied that he appeared in a public debtor registry. He was able to file the appeal and included the certificate that he had delivered the car. “She thought that she could already be calm, but it was not like that & rdquor ;, she admits. “At the beginning of January 2023, they told me that I had to pay 223 euros for the same concept. And, on March 21, my bank notified me that it had an embargo & rdquor ;, she details.
“Incompetence and mismanagement”
In between, Avelina returned to the municipal scrapyard to ask for an account. “They told me that, at the time that the ticket appears, the car was in the tow truck and that what I had to do was report it to the city council & rdquor ;, she says. In the end, she got the sanction canceled without emails or claims from distance.
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“They did not give me any explanation of how they could be confused& rdquor ;, testifies Avelina, who feels she has suffered a manifest mistake:” There has been incompetence and bad management, and I think also bad faith. If not, they would not have told me that she appeared on a list of defaulters to intimidate me & rdquor ;.
The consistory stresses that undue sanctions on vehicles towed are “isolated”. “When they are detected through an appeal, they are always withdrawn,” he added. However, it was not easy for Avelina to get her off of her. He came to see it so complicated that he was about to pay it twice: “Once I got to put on my jacket to go to the bank and pay for it. When I was going to open the door, I stopped. ‘Why am I going to pay if I haven’t done anything?’, I said to myself& rdquor;. Persevering, the driver managed to get the evidence proving that she did not perpetrate the offense prevail over the bureaucracy that urged her to pay.