ROLL UP, ROLL UP! GET YOUR FINES HERE!

At this time of year there are sales all over Italy and you can get discounts of up to 75% on all sorts of goods if you know where, and when, to look.  Shopkeepers are desperate to get rid of their summer stock before everyone disappears for the two-week holiday around ferragosto.  By the time their customers return, en masse, to the cities, the shops will be stocking autumn goods.

This year Italy's beleaguered local councils are hoping to join in and the country's parliamentary Transport Commisssion is currently considering bringing in discounts on parking fines.  Yes, you read  that right - on  parking fines.  Under the proposal, drivers who pay their fines on the spot, by debit card, to the traffic policeman who wrote the ticket would receive discounts ranging from 10 - 20% .

Local councils have had their budgets cut so drastically recently that many have increased the number of traffic policemen on patrol in the hope of gaining more revenue from fines.  The problem is, though, that in reality only 20% of the money is actually received in revenue as the rest is spent on processing the fines.

In a country where parking illegally and badly is almost a national sport, motorists are said to be happy about the proposal.

On my next visit to Modica's open-air market, where the habitual cry of the traders is "Regolati!" - "Giving them away!" I fully expect to see a contingent of traffic policemen "giving away" fines.