Barcodes printed on egg boxes enabled gendarmerie officers in southwest France to identify four teenagers suspected of throwing eggs at vehicles from a bridge over the A20 motorway.
The teenagers threw the eggs at passing vehicles from a bridge near Caussade, Tarn-et-Garonne (Occitanie). Their ‘fun’ actions could have caused a serious accident, gendarmerie said.
The eggs were thrown at around 19:20, ‘raining’ egg yolk, white, and shells on windscreens. This prompted several road users to alert officers.
Upon arriving at the scene on motorbikes, the Escadron departmental gendarmerie found nothing but empty egg cartons yet this was enough for the team.
Together with the motorbike force les motards du peloton motorisé (PMO) in Bressols, they launched an enquiry into the charges of endangering the lives of others.
The barcodes and production details on the pieces of the dumped egg boxes were used to identify which brand the eggs were and which nearby supermarket had sold them.
This then led to examination of the supermarket’s CCTV footage, which showed a young man pulling up to the shop in a vehicle, accompanied by three others. They were then found to have bought 80 eggs in the half-hour before the incident occurred on the motorway.
The young adult aged 19 was arrested at home. He has been summoned to a court hearing for March 15. Three others, aged 14 to 16, were ordered to appear before the youth judicial authority la Protection judiciaire de la jeunesse (PJJ) on March 6.
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