Bugatti Veyron
Authorities around the world have long puzzled how to effectively deter those who would endanger innocent lives by driving recklessly on public roads. Car confiscation laws are now in place in many jurisdictions within America, Canada, Australia, Holland, Israel, South Africa and Poland, and in Iran you can have your car confiscated if it is carrying a pet or an inadequately covered female or playing loud music – indeed, in Iran, you can even be imprisoned and flogged for driving offenses. Maybe that would be preferable for some, compared to what happened to this guy.
While those of us fortunate enough to live in civilized countries may consider such punishments overly harsh, at least they punish the perpetrator. Many punishments in countries we consider civilized are now targeting the owner of the car rather than the perpetrator.
Some jurisdictions give the cars back after impounding them for a period of time, though in Holland, the car can be confiscated permanently and that's just what happened a few weeks back when a 20-year old who had borrowed his dad's car, was booked for doing double the speed limit – 160 kmh in an 80 kmh zone.
That was just far enough over the limit to permanently lose the vehicle he was driving, and win him the world record for the most expensive speeding ticket in history, even if it was effectively being paid by his father – he was driving pop's Bugatti Veyron worth EUR1.8 million!
As far as we can determine, the car is gone for good, and dad is no doubt having a few stern words with junior, despite dad's long term association with motorsport.
The owner of the Veyron, with whom we thoroughly sympathize, is none other than technology entrepreneur Michel Perridon, the founder and CEO of Trust International, manufacturers of some of Europe's best selling computer peripherals.
Michel is a long time sponsor of motorsport and only last year Trust International was sponsoring the Red Bull Formula One team. That's F1 ace Mark Webber, Red Bull F1 Team Leader Christian Horner and wunderkind Sebastien Vettel holding a Trust International Red Bull computer mouse in the photo.
Truly, we do feel sorry for Michel – he wasn't even driving the car, yet if there's an upside, and we think there might be, it's that we think he can legitimately claim the record for himself - after all, he paid the fine. Whatsmore, he isn't going to lose the record soon. If we adjust the world's-most-expensive-speeding-ticket going forward to take inflation into account, it's gonna be a loooong time before he relinquishes the title.
Michel Perridon - can't be smiling now
upper photo credit: nykotynethefuture.wordpress.com
lower photo credit: www.quotenet.nl
edited text: Jack Martin / © 2010 gizmag
