essexeddie
18-06-2015, 21:02
A Spanish driver caught by traffic police biting his fingernails at the wheel has been given an €80 (£57) fine.
The unnamed driver was stopped by a patrol in the western city of Salamanca on June 7 when spotted indulging in his nail-nibbling habit, and the resulting fine has now arrived in the post.
It was posted on Twitter by the local pro-driver group Salamanca Radares.
The fine, which can be halved if it is paid promptly, is ascribed to the driver “not maintaining the correct freedom of movement”, due to the fact that “he was driving while biting his nails”.
As well as pointing out the position of speed radar guns, Salamanca Radares also criticised what it feels is unreasonable targeting of drivers with fines which can only be explained by the need to raise funds. The same Twitter feed mentioned a recent incident in the same Castile y León region in which a driver was fined for chewing gum.
On the print-out of that fine, dated May 29, the unfortunate driver is said to have been “travelling while at the same time fiddling with a chewing gum packet, affecting the attention paid to the road”. The same €80 penalty was applied.
According to a recent study by Fundación Línea Directa (Direct Line insurance company), the number of fines issued to drivers on Spain’s roads increased by 80 per cent between 2007 and 2013, coinciding with the worst years of the country’s economic crisis.
The total number of infractions resulting in penalties rose from 16 million in the 2000-2006 period to 29 million in the following seven-year spell.
But Spain’s DGT road safety agency pointed to the huge improvement in accident prevention in a country once famed for dangerous driving. Last year’s figure of 1,131 fatalities in road accidents was the lowest since records began in 1960 and much lower than the 1989 peak of nearly 6,000.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/11680620/Spanish-driver-fined-for-biting-fingernails-at-the-wheel.html
The unnamed driver was stopped by a patrol in the western city of Salamanca on June 7 when spotted indulging in his nail-nibbling habit, and the resulting fine has now arrived in the post.
It was posted on Twitter by the local pro-driver group Salamanca Radares.
The fine, which can be halved if it is paid promptly, is ascribed to the driver “not maintaining the correct freedom of movement”, due to the fact that “he was driving while biting his nails”.
As well as pointing out the position of speed radar guns, Salamanca Radares also criticised what it feels is unreasonable targeting of drivers with fines which can only be explained by the need to raise funds. The same Twitter feed mentioned a recent incident in the same Castile y León region in which a driver was fined for chewing gum.
On the print-out of that fine, dated May 29, the unfortunate driver is said to have been “travelling while at the same time fiddling with a chewing gum packet, affecting the attention paid to the road”. The same €80 penalty was applied.
According to a recent study by Fundación Línea Directa (Direct Line insurance company), the number of fines issued to drivers on Spain’s roads increased by 80 per cent between 2007 and 2013, coinciding with the worst years of the country’s economic crisis.
The total number of infractions resulting in penalties rose from 16 million in the 2000-2006 period to 29 million in the following seven-year spell.
But Spain’s DGT road safety agency pointed to the huge improvement in accident prevention in a country once famed for dangerous driving. Last year’s figure of 1,131 fatalities in road accidents was the lowest since records began in 1960 and much lower than the 1989 peak of nearly 6,000.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/11680620/Spanish-driver-fined-for-biting-fingernails-at-the-wheel.html