I visit Malta often and a trip to the Marsaxlokk market is a regular event. On September 22, I drove to Power Station Road to park, as I have done so many times before, and proceeded towards Delimara.

At 9.45am there was hardly a space left to park but I eventually found one. When I returned about an hour later I found that a warden had given me a ticket. I looked round for a parking notice or a yellow line but there weren’t any. I checked other cars to see if I should have used the clock but nobody else had used theirs.

I walked around to see whether other cars had received a ticket and there was one – another rental car. That was strange because had I had committed an offence of parking near a solid white line (which is what I understand to be the problem) then, surely, so had all the others. The registration plates were all local – the only offenders were the two hire cars.

I went to Marsaxlokk police station to enquire about the fine and they advised that parking on that road was quite normal: nobody gets a ticket.

Can it be that there is one law for hire cars and one for Maltese cars? The hire car is an easy target: it signifies a holiday maker very unlikely to spend half a day contesting the €23 fine.

Malta looks to tourists to boost its economy, therefore, this is all counter-productive.

I paid the fine but the principle used is not a good one.

Tourists are already being penalised in terms of bus fares. Now hire cars too?