Tuesday 18 June 2013

Royal mistake: Spain's Infanta Elena fined for driving a tractor without a licence

A rather amusing case of mistaken identity caused the eldest daughter of Spain's King Juan Carlos to receive a fine for a traffic infraction involving a tractor in Valladolid. Well, amusing for everyone except the Spanish royal family of course!


Who.. me??
In the north-central Spanish city of Valladolid, two Civil Guard officers wrote up the fine. 
According to the local newspaper, El Día de Valladolid, one of the officers told the other not to bother with writing the driver's ID number and to only include the vehicle's registration number. However, the officer involved had already written two digits, which made up the number 12 on the fine document.

While the average Spaniard has an eight-digit ID number, it seems that the royal family has only two digits, and the number 12 belongs to none other than the 49-year-old Spanish princess.

This caused Infanta Elena de Borbón to receive a hefty fine of between €601 and €3,005 from Spain's Directorate of Traffic for driving a tractor in the municipality of Gaeria without the appropriate license.

It seems the actual driver was a farmer from Geria in Valladolid province who was stopped at a routine police checkpoint on the Simancas-Velilla road. It turned out that his insurance policy on his tractor had expired.

Apparently the error has since been sorted out, and it has been confirmed that the princess does not, indeed, drive tractors around Valladolid.

On the subject of the ID numbers, it seems King Juan Carlos has number 10, his wife the Queen has number 11, Infanta Elena has number 12, nobody has 13 for superstitious reasons, Infanta Cristina has number 14 and Prince Felipe has number 15.

For those wondering who the number one ID number relates to, it was apparently none other than the former Spanish fascist dictator, Francisco Franco, who probably wouldn't have been seen dead driving a tractor either. His wife apparently held the number 2 and his daughter the number 3.

To the source: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/351508

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