The good oil: All tickets, please

Tickets please. Photo / Sarah Ivey

Glendowie resident Glenn writes, in part: "I drove to Hamilton and back on business for the day. It was raining. The usual idiot drivers were about. I saw two police cars on the way, one on the Southern Motorway, the other near Huntly. Both were parked on the side of the road. Coming back, I saw one police car, near Te Kauwhata. I came off the motorway at Nelson St and drove home along Tamaki Drive. Between Quay St and Glendowie, I saw five police cars. Three were ticketing drivers."

Broken bus lanes wasted effort

Fellow taking advantage of the two-or-more rule for private cars in bus lanes slipped past the Good Oil in peak hour on Tamaki Drive - with what looked to be a naked mannequin in the front seat. Might have even been a blow-up doll. The rort was largely wasted - he soon had to squeeze his Toyota Corona back into traffic when the bus lane ran out near Ngapipi Rd, forcing drivers on his outside to let him in. That's the problem with broken bus lanes - they continually disrupt the flow of traffic. Drivers are on and off the brakes and accelerator, so fuel use soars along with CO2 exhaust emissions.

Water, water everywhere

It took a woman we know 95 minutes to get from Glenfield to St Heliers in peak hour. She's an immigrant, not long in the country. "Auckland has one of the best waterways in the world - why can't it use hovercraft to ferry people around," she says. There's one obvious advantage: hovercraft don't need a wharf to tie up to.

Speedster clocks up $1.5m fine

A Swedish motorist is facing the world's biggest speeding fine, the equivalent of $1.5 million, after being caught driving at 290km/h on a Swiss motorway. Police said the 37-year-old man was driving his Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Gullwing at two-and-a-half times the speed limit.

In Switzerland, speeding fines are worked out using a formula based on the income of the motorist and the speed. "We have no record of anyone being

caught travelling faster in the country," a Swiss police spokesman said. "He needed more than a half a kilometre of road to come to a halt."

Drivers honour Dear Leader

In North Korea, the ultimate status symbol is a European car with plates that begin with the number 216. This tells everyone the car was a gift from dictator Kim Jong Il - the numbers mark the date of the Dear Leader's birthday, February 16. Kim had a hand in North Korea's hard-fought 2-1 opening loss to Brazil in soccer's World Cup. His Government provided photographs of him supposedly sending long-distance telepathic strategy signals to the North Korean coach during the game. The signals didn't work for one reason or another. Kim's deified father once shot a one-over par 19 for 18 holes. It was the first time he had played golf, too. That's what the wire story out of Pyongyang said back in the 1970s. It said North Koreans couldn't figure out why the golf world worshipped Jack Nicklaus instead.

We are the world

Justin Johnson asked the teller at the Illinois bank's drive-through window if she would cash a cheque. No problem, sir, said the teller. Johnson, 21, wrote out a cheque for US$1 million and handed it over. The teller asked him to wait. The wait dragged on. He took off and headed for home - and waiting police. Johnson had handed over his driver's licence as ID for the cheque.