This is a cute story from Montreal, about an artwork on wheels – a “Fred Flintstone” car, that has been the subject of a court case over road worthiness.

As a lark (I guess), the artist and friends decided to take it out on the streets. Since it’s basically the same a rickshaw, and is pedal-powered you’d expect no real problem. However, the police overreacted and I guess they saw this (as any non-motorised conventional car) as a challenge to their authority. They lost the case, and were made to look foolish.

In other news, police in the US have special registration that they use to abuse the system. Instead of being simply a mechanism to hide DMV records etc., from criminals, it’s now being used to ensure that police who break road rules are not punished for doing so. There’s one rule for them, another for us. In more similar news, hundreds of police in South Australia have been caught illegally copying movies to their computers, but have received counseling, and no official investigation will be conducted because of the number of officers involved. If it were any of us, we’d be in jail, or pay thousands of dollars in fines.