Karma For The BMW Driver
Karma Is A Laugh At Times
So here we are in the middle of Covid-19 Lockdown here in Spain. You aren’t meant to leave your own village/town without a really good reason. If you get stopped and you are not meant to be out, kiss €3000 goodbye when you get fined.
Brexit Aftermath
So thanks to Brexit, as a Brit you’re allowed to stay 90 days every 180 days unless you have a green card. So if you try to duck and dive, this would mean the next time you try to come back into Spain you run the risk of being turned back at arrivals in the airport. Not a pretty sight I imagine. This means that you can apply for Residencia which is basically the legal right to remain while you are living here.
As the Mrs had already got hers sorted I decided to apply for mine. Went to the local Police Station, with all my paperwork ( exactly the same as the Mrs had taken ) and a translator who did this day in, day out. Arrived and joined the masses waiting there, but we were second in the queue. That was the good point. Sadly the policeman had ventured away for his 10 am breakfast…..
Anyhow, by 11 am I’d been told NO. Seems he wouldn’t accept my health insurance policy which was online only, was online only and as such I had no ‘original’ certificate but I had printed out a copy as proof. Despite the translator explaining this 4 times, he was adamant it wasn’t proper and correct, so my application was rejected.
Next Steps
With a deadline of 31st December 2020 in place, I needed to get this sorted. Instead of a 20 minute drive into the nearest big town, I now had a 90 minute drive to Granada city to the foreigners’ office. I managed to get the first phase done thanks to a wonderful solicitor down there. Forms submitted, bank statements etc and then we went down for the appointment and fingerprints.
Advised that if all was good in 4 weeks I’d have my green card to collect. Back to the top of the page, as we are now in Covid lockdown I needed a letter from the solicitor to explain we had official business at the police station ( in case we got stopped ).
Driving down the motorway, sat there at 120 kmh ( 74 mph ) and I saw a warning sign advertising roadworks ahead. The next signs were for 100 kmh, then after that one for 80 kmh. The motorways in Spain generally are 2 lanes, so this was signposted we were going into single lane. In my mirror, there were 3 cars behind me and we were all deaccelerating accordingly, all except this gopping coloured BMW 3 Series that came tanking down the outside lane. Now on a normal day, I’d have accelerated and left him with 2 choices, drop in behind me or plow into the cones. As I dropped down a gear, I was aware of blue lights ahead on the other side of the motorway. There were 3 police cars and a van, all parked up in a roadblock. I braked a bit more to get down to the speed limit for the roadworks, just as the BMW idiot blasted past me.
Yes, you have guessed it. He then slammed on as we rounded the bend in the road and there we had 3 police cars traffic cones and several policemen stood in the road flagging cars down and sending them into the chicane cone system checkpoint. Like a good lad, I slowed right down, indicated and to my surprise was waved on. As were the next 4 cars behind us. The checkpoint was full with 8 vehicles all being inspected. This meant Mr. BMW was now parked at the back of this line of 8 cars and at a standstill.
Needless to say, had I not let him overtake, then I’d have been the last one to get pulled over. What makes me smile even more is the fact he was in such a hurry to blast past us as we were slowing down and keeping in the limit. No doubt he’ll have lost at least 4 or 5 minutes while he was being in the checkpoint. I have no idea if he was allowed to carry on his journey without a fine or was it double karma and he was travelling without good reason and was fined for doing so. Not sure if he just lost a few minutes of his journey or € 3000, but it seems that BMW drivers in Spain are the same as in the UK.
