A driver was fined 500 euros and lost six points off his licence for loading his car a full half a tonne over the maximum permitted.

The driver, a Moroccan, was stopped by the Mossos de’Esquadra on the AP-7 motorway in Gerundense de Salt, Cataluña on the 18th of September, bless him.

The police took one look at the car, barely visible beneath the roof adornment, equivalent to three Moroccan households, strapped to the roof rack, and decided that he was not going any further.

Sigh! You could always tell an approaching Moroccan driver in the dark by the rattling of the tormented, lashed-down plastic over the roof-rack and the yellow headlights.

During the day, the unmistakable outline of a roof-rack load wider and higher than the imprisoned car below, and with the optimistic faces of three generations of Moroccan relatives squeezed against the windows…

Back in the Good Ol’ days, A Spanish family on holiday arrived on the coast similarly loaded down and the Guardia Civil waved cheerfully as they sailed by… Things have changed; somebody should inform the Moroccan Embassy.

(News: Cataluña – Photo: Mossos d’Esquadra)