(Later edit: comments about food addiction that were previously here have been deleted because of possible offence, see comments that follow this blog entry. Apologies to those who read them and were offended.)
…the point of this little story was the second item on the news. Apparently, in France at least, you can now sell your driving licence penalty points on the internet.
This comes about because when you get caught by a speed camera you are given the chance to claim that someone else was driving the vehicle at that time. They, not surprisingly, have to also admit that they were driving your car.
Well, for a mere 1,000-1,500 euros per penalty point, you can pay someone to say it was them driving your car – they get the driving point and the cash, you keep your clean licence.
Needless to say this doesn’t go down so well with the authorities, who are now clamping down on such behaviour. I understand that if I live in south-west France, and claim that Pierre from Calais happened to be driving my car at 4pm on Tuesday, this will prompt some kind of investigation.
I wonder if the same technique can be applied to other crimes – if I rob my local Credit Agricole branch while wearing a balaclava helmet, how much will it cost me to avoid 10 years in prison. More or less than I can steal?
I thought this was a website about your life in France; not your take on controversial topics. You’re only embarrassing yourself.
I’m not sure I agree about what falls within the scope of what I can write about. However your comment prompted me to go and read a little more about food addiction, and I can now appreciate that it is a real and genuine problem for some people, that can arise from similar biological mechanisms to drug addiction etc.
I would like to extend my apologies to anyone offended by the comments in the blog entry above (which I have now removed).