South Africa: Drunken Police Chief Operates Speed Trap
A drunk police chief issues speeding tickets in South Africa while a park ranger issues $242 tickets for photographing hippos.

Parys Paulus Lenka, the provincial traffic chief in the South African Free State town of Parys, was taken into custody on New Year's Day after being caught manning a speed trap while drunk. He faces an internal investigation, but has not been charged with a crime and was not subjected to a breathalyzer test.

Lenka had pulled over Anton Koen for speeding outside Parys on Sunday. Koen, a former police officer, noticed that Lenka appeared intoxicated and immediately pulled out his video camera to document the incident. In the course of the traffic stop, Koen learned that Lenka did not have the proper calibration and authorization necessary to operate the speed trap.

Meanwhile, in Skukuza, South Africa a German tourist was fined 1500 Rand (US $242) for leaving his car to photograph a hippo from the bank of the Sabie River over the weekend. "He would never have made it to his car if one of the hippos had decided to charge," Kruger National Park spokesman Raymond Travers told News24.

Source: Drunk cop manned speed trap (News24 (South Africa), 1/3/2006)