Official News - page 7

REAL LIFE NEWS: LIFE IN THE FAST LANE

by Hazed

Here's a couple of stories about speeding motorists. First up, what must be the best excuse ever given for someone to break the speed limit: it was the lack of goats that made him do it. A Swiss man caught speeding in Canada explained that he was used to having to slow down due to goats on the road in his native land, which we assume must act like mobile living speed bumps. A police officer's notes record that he was "taking advantage of the ability to go faster without risking hitting a goat". I must remember that one!

The other story is about an idiot who made a bad situation far, far worse. Craig Moore was flashed by a speed camera in Manchester, England, and because he knew that a further infringement would push the number of penalty points on his license over the limit at which you lose your license, he decided to take action.

That night, he returned to the speed camera with some thermite - that's a powdered mixture of aluminium and iron oxide, which he used in his job as a welder - and blew up the speed camera. Thus, he thought, expunging the records of his speeding misdemeanor.

Unfortunately, the camera was not a real speed camera, but only a dummy - it flashed speeding motorists to make them slow down, but didn't keep a record. What's more, it did have a security camera attached, so when police later recovered the recording they found a Ford Transit van approach and stop, then leave just before a shower of sparks which indicated the demise of the camera. Even more unfortunately, the police traced the van to his home address, and he was charged with property damage and jailed for four months!

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