A woman is being held accountable for the fines that the thief who stole her car racked up, while the post office wonders who sent a set of traffic lights through the post. Read more in our collection of motoring tales.
Stuck in traffic
The Royal Mail has been stumped by a set of traffic lights sent through the post and are trying to trace the owner. But why would anyone want to post traffic lights?
reports that the traffic lights were in a brown-papered box, but did not have any postal details. It is sitting at the National Return Letter Centre in Belfast.
“So far we have not received any calls from anyone who is waiting to have a set of traffic lights. Perhaps they are stuck in traffic,” said Alison White of the Royal Mail.
The Royal Mail handles 322 million undeliverable items, of which about 250 million end up at the return letter centre. But a set of traffic lights?
Lose car, gain fines
A woman whose car was stolen 10 years ago was shocked when she received the thief’s parking fines, totalling about R140 000.
The Taiwanese woman’s car went missing 10 years ago at the same time that her then-neighbour also disappeared. My neighbour, who was supposed to buy it from me, drove away the car 10 years ago. He only paid me part of the money,” said the woman.
She had the licence plate registration cancelled, but last year she started receiving notices to pay overdue parking fines for the car. She has 780 parking fines.
A tribunal looked at the matter and found that the woman had not deregistered her car correctly. She must now show proof that the car was stolen and return the licence plate to the registration authorities to be exempted from paying the fines.
Tricky tickets
German motorists have been trick traffic tickets, listing offences like driving without a hat.
Several motorists in Loewenberg went to the local authorities to pay the strange fines, not realising that it was a joke. A traffic official pointed out that the fines were issued in the city of Entenhausen, which translates from German to Duckburg.
The policeman says the tickets were probably photocopied from a cartoon book and simply a joke.
