Book tells worst excuses of drivers
A traffic policeman has brought out a book of the tall tales people tell him when they are stopped
A PARIS traffic policeman who has been noting down the bad excuses people give him for motoring offences for the last 10 years has written a book of them.
The book - Les bonnes excuses des mauvais conducteurs includes some 600 anecdotes, including ones author Alexandre Despratz overheard in the police station or told to him by colleagues.
Mr Despratz says he decided people’s excuses had comic potential as soon as he started the job and a colleague told him how he stopped a man driving a large 4x4 with tinted windows that had gone through a red light.
The man insisted he hadn’t seen the light, but then his children piped up from the back seat “yes, yes, the light sure was red, we told Daddy it was red”.
He told MYTF1News officers sometimes found it hard to keep a straight face - “We’re professionals and even if it’s funny we grit our teeth and do our job”.
He added that the best advice is just to own up, if you are stopped. “When we come up to a motorist and say ‘Hello, do you know why we stopped you?’, of course they know. But at that moment they never know.”
The book goes on sale on Thursday and in November it is even set to become a comic book.
Some of the implausible excuses or comments include:
• ‘Hello Madam. Did you not see the red light?’
‘Well, no, I was on the phone’.
• ‘You’re not going to believe me officer – I went through the red light but I didn’t see it because I was sneezing’.
• ‘Hello young man. Why aren’t you using your indicator to show your changes of direction?’
‘Well, it’s not my car’
• ‘Did you not notice the white line Madam?’
‘Listen, I’m driving here, I can’t be looking at the ground’
• ‘Have you been drinking?’
‘Just a little drop’
‘Come on, you can hardly stand upright’
‘But officer, I drive sitting down’
• ‘Would you mind if I give you my wife’s licence? It’s just that, if I give you mine, I’m going to have no more licence – I won’t have any points left’.
• ‘I’m always getting fines when I drive in town – and it’s always due to the other drivers. They don’t know how to drive’.
