Spanish Ingenuity

When there is the possibility of defying authority in any way the Spanish are World Champions. Amazing considering that the country as a whole is totally conservative in so many ways thanks to the 36 years of Francoism where to speak out against authority was tantamount to getting yourself a life sentence in purgatory from the Catholic Church. Anyway, this one stunned me in a really cool way. Hats off to the Spanish for thinking of this one. Last year the Spanish government brought in the points licence for driving. If you are caught speeding on a radar then you get 2 or 3 points on your licence for example. Well the Spanish "Picaresco" nature (Ingenuity and taking advantage of a situation) has come up trumps. I was round at some friends' house last night, they are both lawyers. We were told about how the system works. If the car is caught in a radar rather than being stopped by the Civil Guard then the points are taken off the licence of the car owner. Therefore if you were not driving you have to prove who was driving at the time.

Not a Typical Image in Spain

Can you see where this is going yet? It turns out that this you can do by sending the name and DNI of the person who "was" driving to the police and their licence gets the points instead. This means that married couples are sharing the points as they come in to avoid driving bans. But here is the good part. If you are pensioned off driving, have an illness that means you can no longer drive or for any other reason you no longer need the points you have, then people are selling their points on ebay and other sites. So to avoid the ban that getting an extra three points would give you all you need to do is look on Spanish ebay and buy three points off Mr Juan Herrero (John Smith) who will send the admission to the police that he was driving the car thus getting your points on his licence.

How cool is that???? (By the way this post by no means condones breaking the law ;-))