Official News page 6

REAL LIFE NEWS: THE NEED FOR SPEED

by Hazed

I have two stories about speeding motorists this week.

First we have the story of the speeder who was convicted thanks to his own stupidity: an online boast. Oh, I do love stories where the criminal's inability to keep his mouth shut brings him down! So many people seem to forget that a passing comment made in a chat room or on a forum stays online forever so can be seen by many people, including the authorities...

This time it was a Toronto driver, 19-year-old Vladimir Rigenco. He boasted on an online car forum about going 140km per hour down a road where the speed limit was only 40km per hour. You can read his post - it's still there.

Well, someone who read that post wasn't too impressed by this reckless display of testosterone motor madness, so he shopped Vladimir to the local police. They investigated the case and shortly thereafter, Vladimir found himself in court, charged with careless driving. He's been banned from driving for six months, has 12 month's probation, has to pay a $1,000 fine, and will have to complete a remedial driving course.

Serves him right!

The other speeding story involves a Swedish driver who was caught in Switzerland driving at 290km per hour, and could be given a world-record speeding fine. That's because under Swiss law, the level of the fine is determined by the wealth of the driver and the speed recorded. The unnamed driver was going 170 km/hour over the speed limit, and is wealthy, so the fine could total one million dollars.

Yes, I said one million dollars.

Wow!

Fed2 Star index Previous issues Fed 2 home page