Fowl Play: Duck Caught Speeding is Repeat Offender

This will probably be the strangest news you read today.

Credit: Gemeinde Koniz | Facebook

A radar image of a speed offender caught in central Switzerland last month has revealed that the culprit was not only a duck but probably a repeat offender, local authorities say. Police in the town of Köniz, near Bern, were astonished when they went through the images snapped by the speed camera to discover that a mallard was among those caught in the speed trap, the local municipality posted on social media.

The duck was caught going nearly twice the speed permitted on the road in question: 52km/h in a 30-km/h zone, the police said. You may think that that's odd enough but it turns out the flying fowl may be a repeat offender, according to the Berner Zeitung newspaper. Apparently, a similar-looking duck was captured on camera flying in the same spot at exactly the same speed, on exactly the same date seven years earlier, the Facebook post said. It was not reported whether the duck paid the fine for the speeding offence in 2018 or what the penalty would be for the "racer duck's" second transgression.

There has been speculation about whether the "notorious racer" duck incident was a belated April Fool's joke, but the police inspectorate said it is impossible to manipulate images on the radar system and the computers are calibrated and tested each year by Switzerland’s federal institute of metrology. Furthermore, the photos taken are sealed, the municipality said.

Speeding offences are taken very seriously in Switzerland and enormous fines can be levied on drivers (but, apparently, not ducks). You may enjoy finding out about the World's Most Expensive Speeding Ticket