Police track down driver who owed €1.25m in fines

BRAZIL: TRANSPORT POLICE in the Brazilian city of São Paulo have finally caught up with their nemesis, apprehending the driver of a 1996 Opel Corsa who owes the city more than €1.25 million in traffic fines.

The huge sum is the result of more than 970 infractions committed during the last five years, including such offences as speeding, running red lights and driving during restricted hours.

Intelligence officers from the state transport department had analysed the data contained in the fines to try and pinpoint where best to locate the vehicle, finally catching up with it outside a house in the south of the city on Tuesday.

The vehicle's owner said he had no idea about the fines or that he owed so much money. The 35-year-old manager of a lunch bar, Armando Clemente da Silva told police he needed the car to get to work.

Mr da Silva said he had not even been able to afford to transfer the car's registration into his name when he bought it at an insurance company auction. This meant that despite his appalling record on the roads, he has received no penalty points on his driving licence.

The insurance company that sold him the car is now scrambling to ensure it is not landed with the fine. It admits it did not inform the authorities until 2005 that it was no longer the owner of the vehicle and accepts that it might be liable to up to €2,500 of the total owed to the authorities, the amount due on the 19 fines accumulated up to that date. If the debt is not paid in 90 days, then the car will be auctioned off, although police estimate that the fine stands at about 500 times the value of the car.

An average of 4.3 people die in São Paulo's traffic each day. Last year 1,566 people in a city of 11 million died as a result of traffic accidents, although deaths on the roads have fallen dramatically in recent months following a crackdown on drink driving.

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times