Police patrolling the St. Helens Linkway, a major thoroughfare in the Merseyside area of England, recently stopped a driver for a couple of driving no-nos. They cited the (anonymous, to his probable thanks) guy for not wearing his seatbelt while also using a mobile phone while driving—which is illegal in more and more places, but which some people still do anyway. Stop doing that, or you’ll hurt somebody, at worst, or get a ticket, which is also bad…but not as bad. But still. Bad.
Oddly, the driver didn’t deny using a cell phone or even offer up a reasonable, sympathetic excuse. When the officer was writing up the ticket, the driver simply provided more information as to the nature of his cell phone use. It didn’t get him out of the ticket or add extra fines, but merely served to embarrass him. It was especially embarrassing after the Roads Policing Unit put a scan of the ticket up on Twitter…where it went viral.
Driver stopped on St Helens Linkway whilst using a mobile phone and failing to wear a seatbelt. Driver provided a very unusual reply. #reported #Fatal4 pic.twitter.com/SMy8PrP4mz
— Roads Policing Unit (@MerPolTraffic) January 23, 2018
🚙 📱 👈🏼 😂 🚓 🛑 ✋🏼 ⁉️ 🤷🏻♂️ 🗒 🖊 = 6️⃣ & 💷 😔
— Roads Policing Unit (@MerPolTraffic) January 23, 2018
In case you can’t read British police handwriting, the man said he “was just putting a laughing emoji to my girlfriend.” Oh. Okay then. Or rather, [shrugging emoji here].