Never mind road safety: for just 50 euros your crap car gets a seal of approval…
Each French car older than four years must undergo a technical check (“contrôle technique“) every two years. This gives the driver a “vignette“, to be stuck on the windscreen, allowing the police to keep track of the car’s road worthiness.
So, what do you do if you have a crap car that would fail the test, and you still want your vignette?
Simple. You have somebody else’s car checked, pay the manager of the Contrôle Technique center a bribe, and stick the vignette on your wreck.
Apparently, this isn’t an isolated fraud. In just two towns in the north of France, police detected 3.500 cars with falsified vignettes issued since February 2004, and 1.440 vehicles with vignettes issued in just the last four months.
According to the police, each car owner paid 50 euros: 10 for the mechanic and 40 for the boss. One of the managers made 140.000 euros this way. He’s now under arrest, together with his secretary and three mechanics.
There are 5.200 of these centers in France…
