It’s been a year since many residents of the town of Villevaudé, in Seine-et-Marne, have been penalized for failing to respect a stop sign. So far, nothing bad, every individual who breaks the Highway Code should be fined. The problem: these tickets were all issued by the same police officer and often at the same times even though… the citizens have never seen it! The Parisian relates this funny story Monday September 11, 2023. The tickets were recorded in the same place, at the corner of an intersection where three signs to mark the stop follow one another. Questioned by our colleagues, a Villevaudéan still couldn’t believe it: “I thought they sent me a duplicate”he exclaimed. In fact, the man received two fines for running a stop sign: one at 8:15 a.m. and the next at 8:16 a.m. “I lost eight points in one minute, he gave me two tickets without even stopping me”he regretted.
Changing the signage would be the solution
In this small village of just over 2,000 inhabitants, we do not understand the policeman’s way of proceeding. Asked by The Parisianthe motorist admitted to having committed the fault, he only scored one “slight stop” to the panel. But according to him, if the police officer had explained it to him, he would have avoided his mistake the next time. “Do that in a minute without even telling me!”he lamented to our colleagues. The mayor of the town, Nicolas Marceaux, also pointed out the “lack of pedagogy” of this mysterious record-maker. He is convinced that the policeman draws up his fines on his way to work in the morning. The elected official is even thinking of transforming these three signaling elements into “yield” so that Villevaudéans avoid losing their license. “The municipal police sometimes issue fines on the fly, but we spoke at length with them on this subject and I explained to them that for me, we need education, that we arrest the driver, we makes him face his errors, his failings, rather than receiving a fine three weeks later for an offense that we do not necessarily have in mind. The fine must be educational, it is not just a sanction”the mayor already estimated to the newspaper The MarneAugust 20, 2023. However, the roads of the Seine-et-Marne department have recorded 43 deaths since the start of the year, recalled The Parisian. The prefecture therefore views this practice favorably “encouraged” Who “aims to control behavior on the road”.