Police cash in on rugby world cup supporters.
Posted on September 4, 2011 by Philip Newman
This morning after arriving at my mates place he was on his way to the supermarket so I ditched my car and jumped in the passenger seat of his car. He’s spent a lot of time tweaking his car to make it look the way he want’s so it’s a sweet ride.
The night before he’d been to a store and picked up some supporters flags that attach to the window when you close it. You know the ones… the small nylon flags attached to the back window flapping around as the torrent of are rushed by as he drove.
Shopping went fine we got some really awesome weekend savings and headed back to his place. We noticed on the way we we’re been tailed by a Police car, intimidating to say the least but we were following all the rules.
The next thing its lights flick on so my mate pulled over and the officer comes to the window.
“Do you know why I’ve pulled you over“ he asked politely. Baffled my mate said not a clue. The police officer then explained that because one of his flags had snapped off and landed on the road he was going to be given a fine for an unsecure load. I peeked out the sunroof and noticed the driver’s side flag had snapped off. While the cop was processing his licence details I decided to remove the other flags attached to the window and put them in the back seat.
The officer returned with his licence and bam $250 fine. Less than impressed we carried on home.
As annoying as it was to see my mate get a fine I do see how these plastic flags can break really easy. The plastic isn’t designed to bend back and forth rapidly in the wind.
We probably wouldn’t have even noticed that I had broken off if we didn’t get pulled over. The fact that it happened when a cop was right behind us was just very unfortunate. The fact my mate was fined was a little bit of an over kill considering how many vehicles have these supporters flags on them.
The lesson here: If you are going to be driving with things attached to the car. Make sure they are secure.
