The Long Arm of the Law Reaches Around the World, Snagging Unsuspecting Man

The Long Arm of the Law Reaches Around the World, Snagging Unsuspecting Man

(Veni-Vidi-Vici, Vortexia) - Last summer we were in Italy for a Bertozzi family reunion. My husband, Big Time Dave, had unanimously been voted our designated driver. But before I tell you what happened this week, you must know something about Dave. He is a good driver. I didn’t say “safe” driver. “Good” and “safe” are sometimes two different things.

Dave is one of those fearless, “take-the-bull-by-the-horns” types; the kind of driver you would want to be in control of your car in an emergency. I’ve witnessed some of his hair-raising maneuvers and can guarantee they border on the miraculous. To this day, I still marvel at some of them.

Like the time we were separated from our lead car in the heart of Paris during rush hour and he did a U-turn in the middle of the Place de la Concorde. Eye-witnesses on the street were astonished. Or the time he returned a car rental in downtown Marseilles within moments of boarding our train. Anyone who has been to this little French Algeria on the Cote d’Azure knows what an incredible feat of motor engineering that must have been. Or the time he backed up on an interstate overpass in Rome. I nearly lost my lunch on that one.

Of course, that’s the kind of moxie a driver must have to drive in Italy.

As fate would have it, however, this week (almost a year from the date we were in Italy last year) Dave received a traffic ticket for 102 euros in the mail from EMO - The European Municipality Outsourcing. It was a lovely looking envelope with lovely print and grand flourishes; just like everything else in Italy. Lovely.

The loveliness was lost on Dave. You see, my husband is also a proud man when it comes to traffic fines. He was initially incredulous, then indignant, and finally outraged by a traffic camera’s claim that, on the outskirts of Florence last August he – according to Art. Lo 7C.14 – CIRCULATED ON THE BUS LANE DESPITE THE PROHIBITING TRAFFIC SIGNS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE BUS LANE.

Although he suffered a mental block while trying to recall that day in Florence, I remembered it vividly. Dave was in the front seat asking (shouting, actually) “What lane do I get in?” I and a friend in the back seat, magnifiers in hand, were pouring over a map straddled across our laps trying to make sense of the tangle of roads before us in the split-second we had to make a decision. It was the first of so many fiascos that day on the road to Rome, I’m surprised our mail box wasn’t flooded with traffic tickets when we got home.

Poor Dave. The long arm of the law, reaching all the way from Italy, has found him.

At first he debated not paying the fine, but thought better of it when he realized it would mean he could never go back. He would be a wanted man the next time we visited his cousins, and that just would not do. So, he’s sucking it up and coughing up the fine.

Given the daring reputation Daddy Dave has built for himself these last years, my kids and I are laughing till our sides hurt.