We watched with interest yesterday as police ticketed vehicles parked illegally in Wellington Street, Central. Unfortunately, they were ticketing commercial vans and trucks that were delivering material to shops and restaurants. However, the Mercedes-Benzes and other tycoon-mobiles also illegally parked were waved on, even though they took up more space. We watched as one Mercedes moved 10 metres up the street and was able to park again.
This reluctance to give anyone in anything resembling a luxury car a ticket while happily ticketing commercial vans is grotesque discrimination and a lot more besides. It is hardly encouraging for the rest of the society to see that there is one law for the rich and another for those who are not. In this instance, at 11.45 yesterday morning, the police cannot argue they were busy on other more important matters, since they were taking the time to issue tickets.
This practice invites a lack of respect for the police. They come over all belligerent when dealing with the little guys, but their body language visibly changes when dealing with drivers of luxury vehicles. This suggests their senior officers aren't telling them how to do the job properly.
Some of the comments we have received in respect of our HSBC item yesterday suggest the need for some clarification. It will be recalled the item centred on a pop-up ad on HSBC's website. A reader wrote to say that he was offended by it when he logged on to his account last Saturday.
It read: "AccidentSurance - Double indemnity on death or disablement caused by public transport accidents." He observed that it was distasteful in that it appeared that the bank was trying to capitalise on people's fears in the wake of the recent ferry disaster.
Some comments we received suggest people thought it was some new kind of insurance policy. But those words on the pop-up ad are normally to be found in the small print of some of HSBC's insurance policies. So the admeisters at HSBC have plucked these words from the obscurity of the small print and turned them into an ad highlighting the double indemnity that is paid out should people travelling on public transport suffer an accident or death.