He was travelling at the speed of sound, actually, even more - so much so that the police on the B-road barely saw him pass. But the "sensor" (speed camera), that did see him pass, and recorded everything. That said, it exaggerated, and not by little. The fiat Doblo that was going at supersonic speed was caught by the chief of the municipal police of Orbia (Brindisi) on the SS7 (single-lane carriageway type road), that connects Brindisi to Taranto and Lecce. The car was travelling at - according to the fine - 1230 km/h. Thus, higher than the speed of sound (equal to 1,193.4km/h), and bypassing by quite a bit the maximum limit of 90km/h. As is printed black on white, the car was speeding at 1078km/h. The owner of the car, acording to checks done by the police, is from Lizzanello, in the county of Lecce. He (or the drive, in case someone else was driving) will need to pay a fine of 165 euros. He will also lose 3 points from his license. Now it's a matter of discovering what caused the stratospheric fine (as in the paper, not the fee), due certainly by a fault in the speed camera - and how the police managed to issue the fine accepting the speed as valid. The legal team of the "consumer protection people" (a non profit group who tries to stop people from getting conned), who have now received a copy of the paperwork from the owner, will need to verify if the fine is valid. "We couldn't believe it" - writes Giovanni D'Agata - "until we saw the fine with our own eyes"
Written by Sonia Gioia
It's actually written in a very tongue-in-cheek, informal Italian... hard to replicate!
Oh, and before anyone asks - the speed of sound is 1193 at standard atmospheric pressure...
