Ever been stuck in a nasty traffic jam and wished you could fire up an emergency siren and watch the cars around you make themselves scarce? I think we’ve all had that fantasy once or twice.
But the mega-wealthy class in Russia figured out how to turn it into a reality. Instead of struggling in the heat of traffic and complaining like every other person, these filthy rich Russians devised their own means of beating the terrible traffic.
According to The National Post, the wealthy Moscow residents reportedly hired “ambulance-taxis” to beat the city’s terrible traffic jams.
The vehicles, which could cost more than $200 an hour and were advertised on the internet, supposedly use their sirens to glide through standstill traffic.
These aren’t just ordinary ambulances, either. They’ve been cleverly fitted with fancy and luxurious interiors so their passengers can eat caviar and sip champagne while they blow through traffic with lights and sirens blazing.
However, the local police soon got wind of this clever practice and they soon began to send out men to be on the lookout for such vehicles. This practice hit its peak in 2013 as The National Post did a report on it then.
The paper reports: A law enforcement source told Izvestiya newspaper that one such vehicle had already been identified. “During a patrol, a medical car was stopped because it was breaking traffic rules,” said the source.
“The driver appeared strange and did not resemble an ambulance driver at all.
“Police officers opened the automobile to check it and saw that the interior was fitted out like a high-class limousine with comfortable seats for transporting VIP passengers.”
The traffic in Moscow is notoriously bad. In 2011, officials attempted to double the size of the city to deal with traffic snarls and overcrowding.
In the winter of 2013, hundreds of cars were stuck in a 120-mile-long jam, some for as long as three days, after heavy snow hit the city.