Скачать или смотреть For years, Irish police thought "Prawo Jazdy" was a prolific offender with 50+ violations

For years, Irish police thought they were chasing one of the country’s most notorious traffic offenders, a man named Prawo Jazdy, who had racked up more than 50 violations.

But there was just one problem: Prawo Jazdy wasn’t a person at all. It’s actually the Polish phrase for “driver’s license.”

The confusion started in the early 2000s as Ireland’s Polish immigrant population grew. On Polish licenses, the words “Prawo Jazdy” appear in bold at the top. Unfamiliar with the language, Irish officers mistook it for the driver’s name, and soon “Prawo Jazdy” was showing up in police records all over the country as a repeat offender.

The truth finally came out when an officer with some knowledge of Polish pointed out the mistake. The Garda quickly corrected its database, but not before the story made headlines and became a running joke in both Ireland and Poland.