Skip to main content

Sense of humour failure?

A UK driver using his hands-free phone was spotted laughing at a joke by a police traffic officer and pulled over. The driver was told that laughing while driving can be an offence and was then questioned by the officer for 30 minutes. During this questioning, the driver was asked the colour of his hair.
February 28, 2012 Read time: 1 min
A UK driver using his hands-free phone was spotted laughing at a joke by a police traffic officer and pulled over. The driver was told that laughing while driving can be an offence and was then questioned by the officer for 30 minutes. During this questioning, the driver was asked the colour of his hair. The driver pointed out that he is bald due to alopecia, a condition that causes hair loss, and was then asked what colour his hair was, prior to the onset of the alopecia. The man was allowed to drive away without charge. Drivers in and around the Birkenhead Tunnel should take note from this incident however and refrain from laughing, as well as blinking excessively, sneezing or coughing, while at the wheel. Smiling while at the wheel is permissible but drivers should check the width of their smile and ensure that this does not exceed guidelines regarding field of vision. Bald drivers may be required to carry hair samples.

Related Content

  • Red light stop
    June 27, 2014
    A driver in the UK was issued with a parking ticket, when stopped at a red light. The driver was issued the parking ticket as his vehicle was spotted halted at a bus stop. After the driver appealed, the local authorities admitted that issuing the parking ticket had been a mistake. Also in the UK, a Welshman received a rather unpleasant surprise when he opened his post. He had been sent fines for driving his vehicle in a bus lane and parking illegally in London, around 400km away.
  • Montreal’s critical list of deteriorating bridges and tunnels has doubled
    September 3, 2012
    The number of Montreal’s bridges and tunnels in a “critical” condition has more than doubled during the past 12 months, says a shocking new report looking at the state of the city’s transport infrastructure. The new report, which came out this month, shows that 27 of the city’s 587 highway structures reached “critical condition” in 2011 compared with only 12 in 2010.
  • Losing your car ain’t as hard as you would think
    April 29, 2015
    Thankfully it doesn’t happen too often, but forgetting where you parked your car can be an embarrassing moment, or several days, as one man in the UK recently found. Jason Matthews, 40, ran the Manchester City Marathon on April 19 in five hours and 11 minutes and then spent an additional several hours looking for his Saab 93 Sport. He said he couldn’t recall where he had parked the vehicle. He walked back around some of the 26-mile – nearly 42km - course, before driving around in a taxi for 40 minutes an
  • Rebuilding the busy Frankfurt Airport in Germany
    September 12, 2017
    Handling up to 450 take-offs/day, Runway West is Frankfurt Airport’s busiest runway. Over 50% of the aircraft taking off from the airport uses Runway West, and a point worth noting is that this German airport is one of the busiest in Europe. In 2016, Frankfurt Airport handled nearly 61 million passengers, surpassed by Schiphol in Amsterdam and Charles de Gaulle in Paris, Europe’s third and second busiest airports respectively. Meanwhile London’s Heathrow remained Europe’s busiest airport