Skip to main content

Faster

A handful of British-registered performance cars proved something of a handful for the French police recently. The five cars, including two Porsches and a Lamborghini, rocketed past an off-duty officer travelling in his own vehicle along a stretch of autoroute close to the Spanish border. Because of the high speeds involved, the French police opted to use a helicopter operating out of its base in Bayonne to track the cars. The drivers did spot the helicopter tailing them and then slowed down but were still
July 1, 2015 Read time: 1 min
A handful of British-registered performance cars proved something of a handful for the French police recently. The five cars, including two Porsches and a Lamborghini, rocketed past an off-duty officer travelling in his own vehicle along a stretch of autoroute close to the Spanish border. Because of the high speeds involved, the French police opted to use a helicopter operating out of its base in Bayonne to track the cars. The drivers did spot the helicopter tailing them and then slowed down but were still booked for speeding when they halted to pay their tolls at the next booth. The French police were less than impressed and imposed large on-the-spot fines, although they had not been able to determine the exact speed of the vehicles from the air.

Related Content

  • Emergency driver
    July 30, 2012
    In Japan a firefighter has been dismissed, having driven fire engines and other emergency vehicles without a license. The man had been working as a firefighter for over 20 years in Takaoka City before a routine check uncovered the fact that he had no license. At first the man tried to pass off his father's driving license as his own, but when he seemed reluctant to show it to his superiors they insisted on examining it more closely and it was quickly realised that the photograph was of his father. Although
  • New equipment for materials testing
    January 13, 2014
    Leading formwork manufacturers have secured some impressive contracts in Africa, as the continent’s transport infrastructure continues to improve at a rapid pace. Meanwhile, other bridgework equipment companies are also seeing their products in demand in Africa, as well as North America and Australia. Guy Woodford reports
  • GPS machine control systems reduce survey time
    February 14, 2012
    Innovative uses are being made of GPS technology, Mike Woof reports. US firms Creighton Manning Engineering and Delaney Construction have made a novel use of GPS technology in a project for the Route 85 Slingerlands bypass extension in the US.
  • Energy efficient cement testing solution
    February 27, 2012
    In determining the mechanical strength of cement, the European Standard EN 196 prescribes both compressive and flexural tests, so when Italian company Tecnotest designed its current generation of cement testing machines, the aim was to obtain highly accurate results over the full scale despite the wide range involved by implementing a dual scale in a single test bay, using load cells as dynamometers.