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Pensioners
take cash and points to keep speeding drivers on the road...
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| It is the latest ruse on the
roads of France... drivers are avoiding disqualification by trading
licence points on the internet. |
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| Complete strangers are taking
the rap for speeding offences in return for up to €1,500 [£1,000] and
police admit they are powerless to intervene. Even pensioners who
have not driven for many years are getting in on the act. |
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| The online scam is also
popular in Spain and other European countries... and authorities believe
it may soon be introduced in Britain. It threatens to make a mockery
of a French crackdown on road safety and embarrass President Sarkozy over
his promise of a "zero tolerance" on law and order. |
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| In France a clean licence has
12 points. Points are then deducted when an offence is
committed. Now motorists are 'selling' their clean points for
hundreds of euros each to drivers who are on the verge of
disqualification. |
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| Advertisements on the
internet offer points for sale at prices ranging from €300 in the Paris
region to more than €1,500 in rural areas. "I have 12 points
on my licence. If you need them for work or your holidays, I can
help you," said a typical offer yesterday on the French eBay auction
site. Another on a small-ad site said: "I suggest you keep your
points and I’ll sell you up to six at €700 each." |
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| The technique is
simple. In return for money, the seller provides his or her name and
licence number in response to the speed camera ticket. The notice
that is automatically sent to the owner of the offending vehicle includes
a form for identifying another driver. Checks are extremely rare. |
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| The black market... which the
authorities admit they are unable to prevent... is an unintended
consequence of stronger enforcement of the highway code... and especially
of an exploding number of speeding tickets since automatic radar was
installed on French roads on 2003. |
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| Some eight million points are
deducted from French licences each year through the operation of 1,000
speed cameras... which were introduced by Mr Sarkozy when he was Interior
Minister. An estimated 70,000 licences were cancelled last year...
compared with 21,000 in 2003. |
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| Another consequence has been
a steep rise in the number of people driving while disqualified.
Some experts estimate that unlicensed drivers are at the wheel of up to 8
per cent of vehicles on the road. |
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| It has become routine in
families of all classes for repeat offenders to ask friends and relatives
with clean licences to lend their names. This explains an apparently
steep rise in bad driving by older citizens. The rate of offences by
drivers over 65 jumped 38 per cent from 2003-05... when the speed cameras
began to bite. |
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| Substituting another driver
for a speeding ticket carries a €1,500 fine. Sellers can also be
prosecuted for "complicity in false accusation". The
Government of Dominique de Villepin... the last Prime Minister... ordered
a €20 million effort to find ways of combating points fraud... but the
process has so far reached no conclusion. |
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| Officials acknowledge that
the state is swamped with the administration of automatic fines. The
Interior Ministry said that it carries out spot checks... "For
example... suspicion will be raised if an 84-year-old grandmother is
snapped at 200 kph [160mph] at five on a Sunday morning near a
nightclub," he told le Parisien newspaper. |
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| Jean-Baptise Iosca, a lawyer
who specialises in motoring cases, said that the borrowing and buying of
licence points now touched every social class. "I have clients
coming to see me after losing not only all their own points but also 12
from their grandmother and all their grandfather’s," he said. |
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| The illegal market is fuelled
by a widespread belief that there is something immoral and un-French about
the enforcement of the 15-year-old points system with speed cameras. |
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| Polls show many believe that
'les radars' have been installed as an unfair ploy to make money for the
state. Dozens of installations on motorways and major roads have
been vandalised. Eighty per cent of offences are for under 20 km/h
excess speed... yet each eats two points from the licence. The loss
of all 12 triggers a six-month suspension plus the obligation to retake
the driving test. |
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| Some points sellers argue
that they are performing a social service... saving the licences of people
who depend on their vehicles for their living. "When you are on
the road all day for your work, it is impossible to avoid being
caught," said Pierre-Yves, a 45-year-old businessman from Nantes who
sells points at €700 each. "I don’t have a bad
conscience," he told le Parisien. "I only offer my
services to people with small excesses of speed. And I always ask to
see a copy of the ticket. I would never sell my points to a road
hog." |
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| French officials were unable
to estimate the scale of points fiddling. Across the border in
Spain, an online motoring site, estimates the black market in points there
is worth about €30 million a month. One internet user in Spain
listed his grandmother’s licence points for €250 each, plus the cost
of any traffic fines. "I have persuaded the poor woman to renew
her licence, with the sole objective of having more points," he
said. "At the moment, I am going to use them, but if anyone is
interested we could reach an agreement." |
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| Elena Extxegoyen, a Spanish
MP, said that families were trading points among themselves while
foreigners, who do not lose points on their licenses, were offering to
take responsibility for speeding tickets for a fee. |
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