IPN feature

Moldovan reality beats fiction

In a large, civilized city, a man parked his car on the sidewalk. It was a Ranger Rover large enough to cause inconveniences to an ordinary pedestrian walking on that sidewalk. For the inconveniences to be as great as the vehicle, the car was parked across the walkway so that the area between the car and the tree growing at the edge of the sidewalk is large enough only for an ordinary not corpulent pedestrian to pass. Those who are more corpulent can pass only by bypassing the vehicle. The overweight ones, the invalids in wheelchairs, the mothers with babies in carriages, a woman with several bags in her hands, who returns from work and made some purchase at the shop on the way, or the fathers returning from kindergarten with their children holding their hands have no chance to pass than to go around by risking their health and life.



This seems not enough as the vehicle is parked about one meter of the road sign showing that parking and stopping is banned. For the picture to be complete, the car is parked in front of an important diplomatic office, with the back about 30-40 centimeters from the booth where there should be guardians, carabineers or police officers who must protect the foreign diplomats from possible offenders. It can be anticipated that if, one morning, the driver starts the car and moves backward instead of forward after a difficult night, the vehicle can crush the courageous defenders of the diplomatic office together with the booth.

This is not all yet. The place is surrounded by a chain and metallic poles so that even when the famous car is missing, the ordinary pedestrians cannot pass there and canon benefit from their rights to use a public area that belongs exclusively to them. Thus, the parked car imposed its presence there, like the ‘sacred cow’, day and night, in winter and in autumn, weeks, months and years in a row. 

Dear readers, what you read until now is not literature or fiction created by people with rich imagination. Each of the actions and details described are real. The city mentioned is Chisinau – the capital of Moldova that became a member of the United Nations in 1992. The place is situated at 68 Mateevici St. The building is the head office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (ICNUR) in Moldova. As to the vehicle, it is as real as it can be. It is a black Ranger Rover whose license number is not a diplomatic one - CPG 044. The risks to the pedestrians’ health and life and the humiliation to which a person who has to face these risks is subject to are as real. The pictures attached to this article show that the details given were not invented.

Authorities ‘fail to notice’
 
We must admit that we initially sinned against the ICNUR. Anyway, the ‘sacred cow’ is parked in front of its Representative Office. We though that these foreigners ‘Moldovenized’ too. “Instead of learning from them how to obey the laws, including the common sense law and the laws of peaceful co-existence, they learn from our worst practices”. In fact, this logic conclusion that can be reached by every ordinary person and pedestrian, who does not have the press instruments in hand and is not obliged to have them, causes real and huge damage to the image of the main world organization in front of the residents of Chisinau, without it knowing this at least. It then turned out that the UN diplomats bear no blame in this case. Representatives of ICNUR said the car parked on the sidewalk does not belong to them. It is owned by a dweller living in the yard. Moreover, the only car belonging to the UN Agency is parked legally in front of the head office of Gazprom that is situated nearby.



We had a number of reasons not to inquire about the ‘dweller living in the yard’. The main of them was formulated two days ago by Prime Minister Iurie Leanca, when he made recommendations concerning the White Nights operation of July 5-6 to police officers and members of the special police brigade “Fulger”. “Regardless of the license, money, class of the vehicle, relations or impudence of the inebriated drivers, they must be stopped and penalized for breaking the law. Nobody is above the law. Thus, I encourage you apply the law uniformly, no matter who the inebriated driver is,” said the Premier. We, the journalists, would be unable to provide better arguments why we should not identify the owner who breaks the laws of co-existence and creates permanent situations of risk to the life and health of thousands of people, even if this owner was not caught driving under the influence. In the morning of July 7, the chain of the ‘sacred cow’ was in place...

However, we would be interested to know the attitude of a number of public authorities to this situation. At the request of IPN, Mihail Lari, senior specialist of the Chisinau General Public Transport and Communications Division, travelled to the scene to see if the vehicle was parked illegally and the pedestrians indeed have to go on the roadway when it is parked there. The functionary said that he examined a number of relevant cases for the last four years and identified no authorization for laying out a parking place at that address. He also said that the parking of the vehicle in that public area is a violation as the pedestrians cannot pass and the police should take steps.

The Division’s head Igor Gamretski said that parking on sidewalks is allowed only in specially set up areas where there are relevant road signs. All the violations identified in the municipality of Chisinau are coordinated by the National Patrolling Inspectorate and the Transport Division. There are no normative documents or regulations stipulating that parking on sidewalks is banned. The vehicles can be parked in banned places only if there are road signs allowing this. If there are no such signs, the responsible police bodies should be informed. In principle, the police remove the license plate and take the car away. As there is no area where these vehicles can be taken, most of them remain on the street, but without licensee plate.

Sources in the police said they received no complaint from people over this case....

About unauthorized parking lots as ‘about the dead’

The head of the Chisinau General Public Transport and Communications Division said there are no normative documents or regulations concerning parking on sidewalks. Such documents are absent even if the city has been crowded with cars for many years. What should happen for them to appear? Moreover, the head of the Public Association “Road Safety in Moldova” Ilie Bricicaru said the Code of Administrative Offenses does not define all the kinds of violations in this field. Thus, we can speak about cases of unauthorized parking as about the dead – say either good things or say nothing at all.



Ilie Bricicaru also said that parking in public areas in Chisinau is serious problem. Statistics show that the streets of Chisinau are able to cope with about 90,000 units of transport. Currently, there are about 200,000 vehicles in Chisinau. Therefore, the people park where they find a place. “The city needs parking lots and this is what the authorities should do. They have spoken about underground parking garages, but nothing is done. The current state of affairs, including the conflicts between the drivers and pedestrians, is due to the lack of parking areas,” stated Ilie Bricicaru.

According to him, Moldova witnesses a paradox because the Code of Administrative Offenses does not regulate all the possible violations of the traffic rules, which can cause situations of accidents or risks for pedestrians. At the same time, the road signs in Chisinau were set up in the Soviet period and do not meet the necessities of the time. The national legislation should be modified and the drivers who cause real situations of danger to the life and health of the pedestrians should be deprived of license, not only fined.

State officials ready to fight ‘for people’s welfare’

We can presume that sector inspectors, chiefs of sector inspectors, district heads and mayors, police commissioners, ministers and MPs who are ready to any time fight for the ‘people’s interests’ in Parliament and outside, not only in figurative meaning, have passed through Mateevici St during the days, months and years during which the ‘sacred cow’ was parked there. They probably go though that area regularly as the place is near the building of the U.S. Embassy in Moldova, the Civil Status Office and other important buildings situated in that historical part of the city.  We can allege that they sometimes also walk there and the situation inconveniences and even humiliates them too. We are sure that they always intend to do something and to punish the owner of the car who considers that his vehicle is more important that anyone else. But they can do nothing because this ordinary pedestrian does not complain...



Within the discussions on this case, we were urged to talk directly to the Mayor of Chisinau Dorin Chirtoacă. Several months ago, we informed the mayor about the appearance of new kiosks on Muncesti St, but those kiosks continue to work. Anyway, we will send this article to the public email addresses of the Chisinau City Hall and the Ministry of the Interior...

... Another man set up a barrier across the street in front of his house, which is definitely public area, even during the campaign that preceded the local elections of 2011. Sector inspectors, chiefs of sector inspectors, district heads and mayors, police commissioners, ministers and MPs who are ready to any time fight for the ‘people’s interests’ in Parliament and outside, not only in figurative meaning, have probably passed through that are since then. But nobody complained to them... There are thousands of such cases and each of them weighs like ‘one thousand’ cases. Why did the ordinary people become tired of complaining to the authorities that they elected?

Dan Gutu, Valeriu Vasilică, Alina Marin, IPN