If you have been driving around Salobreña recently you'll have been pleased, alarmed, unperturbed or jittery upon seeing the radar-warning notices!

Some might have even suffered a spontaneous ejaculation but let’s just stick to the general public and leave members of the police to one side.

The most evident one is on the entrance roundabout where the reluctant Tourist Information Office is – it’s always closed.

Now, there is no fixed, speed trap installed but rather a mobile one, operated by ‘make-my-day’ officers belonging to the Policía Local.

You would be wrong to suppose that these devices have only just been switched on and are ‘set to stun’ because they have been operative since summer, so it must have slipped the mind of the Town Hall to let people know about it.

So, there are random checks carried out in several places around Salobreña meaning that on single-lane streets you will have the paint peeled of your car, if you go over 30, whereas along 2-lane avenues you’ll get a reasonably instant suntan, if you exceed 50.

This is for your own good – your wallet might disagree – as well as for the benefit of pedestrians who have no wish to get a sneak peek into people’s 2nd-floor windows as they spin off in a lazy, arcing trajectory.

The Councillor for Citizen Safety, Ignacio Trujillo, assures us that the system was put in place owing to popular demand because there are those, who once encased in their fiery Fiat 125s, believe that anything below Warp-Factor Five is for wimps.

So how are those splendid chaps in blue doing on the fining front? Well, so far in the first months of this year they have dolled out 140 fines for intra-urban speeding, mainly along the Avenida 28 de Febrero and Avenida de Andalucía.

The majority of those fined – be prepared to gasp – are moped riders, who mistakenly believe that the scream of tortured, cylinder valves disintegrating is simply symphonic.

And as for your next question… the sum of the fines depends on just how fast you were going and in what area, but we can say that they range between 100 and 600 euros. Of course, your driving licence will also have a handful of points shorn off.

So, hopefully you have been sufficiently informed and suitably amused enough to face another day on a planet run by the insane and populated by the insatiably irrational.

(News: Salobrena, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia – Photo: RadioSalobreña)