Being in the wrong place at the wrong time

Two things that continue to surprise me on a fairly regular basis here are “zebra” crossings and parking habits.

First the crossings: I know they are not really "zebra" crossings in the UK sense of the word but they are similar so there we go. What surprises me is the way many people wait passively, very patiently, for quite a long time for the little green man to appear and then they cross. This happens even when the road is patently clear in both directions.

Secondly the parking: basically Spanish drivers park just about anywhere. You see parked vehicles next to or even on pedestrian crossings, on the corners of streets, in pedestrian areas, everywhere. As a rule, if you leave your hazard lights on it's OK.

I have gone on at length about both these topics before but I have returned to them now because of a little item I spotted in the newspaper El País. One day at the end of last week somewhere in Cataluña a woman crossed the road on a red light. It turned out to be a crossing where there have been a number of accidents so a policeman stopped her and asked to see her DNI. Annoyed she demanded to see his police ID. Annoyed in his turn he slapped a fine on her and asked her to accompany him to the police station. She then phoned her husband who drove to the spot to see if he could sort things out. It just got worse, however, as he parked in a pedestrian zone and the policeman gave him a fine as well!

Apparently the policeman had only intended to give the woman a verbal warning, pointing out the risks of crossing on red lights, especially as she was very pregnant and not really in a state to run. It just goes to show that you can’t be too careful. You might choose the wrong time and place to cross the road illegally!!!

A more serious case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time occurred in France, also at the end of last week. Five firemen from Cataluña went on a climbing holiday in France. Little did they know that they would be there at the same time as a bunch of ETA terrorists who ended up shooting a French policeman.

Now, shortly before the shooting these firemen went shopping in a supermarket close to the place where the etarras carried out their attack. The bomberos were caught on video camera in the supermarket and somehow were identified as members of the ETA gang. Well, I suppose they spoke in a language that wasn’t French, somebody worked out that they were Spanish and then jumped to wrong conclusions.

The first the firemen knew was when friends and family told them that they had seen them on TV. They ended up being questioned by French police. What really annoyed them was that they were arrested as etarras, not as presuntos etarras; in other words they were considered guilty from the start.

In the end they proved that they were in fact Catalan and not Basque at all, let alone Basque terrorists but it must have been a bad moment. Arrangements were made for them to be flown home. After all, one of them was supposed to be on duty yesterday. What was not made clear was what was going to happen to their red van – still in the wrong place!