French police have fined a motorist €750 (£655) for driving while watching a film on his laptop and eating foie gras on toast at the same time.
Eager to reverse an alarming recent rise in the number of road accidents in the country, police have been told to clamp down on any dangerous driving.
Used to stopping people for using their mobile phones while behind the wheel, which can be deemed dangerous, officers in Laval, western France, were flabbergasted when they spied a motorist engaged a rarer form of multi-tasking on the road.
According to Ouest France, the regional newspaper, he was watching an unidentified film and chomping on one France’s best-know gastronomic delicacies – foie gras, or pâté made from fattened goose or duck liver.
Eating at the wheel is not illegal in France as long as the driver remains in control of the vehicle. However watching a film on a laptop placed on the dashboard is against the law.
AFP
The combination of the film and the foie gras was apparently more than enough for police to conclude that he was "driving in a dangerous position", and liable to cause an accident.
They reportedly fined him €750 but allowed him to drive off after stowing his laptop and wolfing down the remains of his foie gras.
The French normally the delicacy with a bit more ceremony, often serving it on toast at special occasions and washing it down with a glass of sweet wine, such as Sauternes.
It transpires, however, that the motorist who caused the offence was not French but Russian.
He may now have learned his lesson.
Earlier this month, the French government announced it would lower the speed limit on two-lane highways to 80 kilometres per hour (50mph) from 90kph in a bid to reduce highway deaths, which reached nearly 3,500 in 2016.
The government says the lower speed limit could save 350 to 400 lives a year.
It also plans to crack down on the use of cellphones – or laptops – while driving. Police can now suspend a licence if the driver is found to have broken other laws while using a phone that could “endanger his own security or that of someone else”.
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