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Speed Demon Solidarity

Danish Drivers' Club Offers Ticket Insurance

For all those who have the need for speed in Denmark, help has arrived. An automobile club is now offering insurance for speeding and parking tickets.

Perhaps it's a bit early for the unveiling of unique holiday gift ideas, but one Danish driver's club looks to be getting a head start this summer. The product? Speeding ticket insurance. For just 2.50 Danish crowns (33 euro cents) per day, the club will pay up to four speeding tickets and four parking tickets per year, up to a value of 10,000 crowns.

The idea, Fartklubben founder Poul Winther told Danish daily Politiken, is not to give Danes license to put the pedal to the metal, but rather to protect motorists from over-zealous traffic cops.

"We're a solidarity club where each member is jointly liable for one another," he said. "We believe that photo speed traps and parking companies have become pure money machines."

The Danish government is not happy about the idea and is looking for ways to shut down the offer. Jesper Soelund of Denmark's Road Safety Council is concerned that such an offer could adversely affect road safety.

"Everyone knows that speed measurements mean a great deal to traffic safety," he said according to the English language paper Copenhagen Post. "If it doesn't cost people anything to drive too fast, where does that lead us? Should we also create a club for drunk drivers?"

In support of his insurance offer, Winther points to the fact that 840 drivers who had been charged with speeding in the Copenhagen suburb of Gladsaxe were exonerated this year because the radar guns used by the police were defective.

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