Wikinews Shorts: February 19, 2009

A compilation of brief news reports for Thursday, February 19, 2009 .

Ireland's most-wanted traffic offender unmasked

For several years Ireland's Police hunted the country's most notorious traffic offender. Mr Prawo Jazdy ran up over fifty speeding and parking offences all over the country, but escaped fines by giving a different address each time. Eventually the penny dropped, and in June 2007 the Garda Traffic Division issued a confidential memo to officers, which has just been published in the Irish press. "Prawo Jazdy is actually the Polish for driving license and not the first and surname on the license. Having noticed this, I decided to check and see how many times officers have made this mistake. It is quite embarrassing to see that the system has created Prawo Jazdy as a person with over 50 identities."

200,000 Polish citizens moved to Ireland in the years following Poland's accession to the European Union in 2004, and their driving licenses remain valid throughout the EU.

Sources

Eimear Ni Bhraonain. "Rogue driver Prawo is lost in translation" — Irish Independent, February 19, 2009
"The mystery of Ireland's worst driver" — BBC News Online, February 19, 2009

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