37 drivers in wedding convoy fined by Istanbul police

ISTANBUL

A total of 37 drivers in a wedding convoy were fined by Istanbul police for causing a traffic jam on April 1, daily Habertürk has reported.

Many drivers informed police that the wedding convoy was causing a traffic jam on the TEM highway.

Upon a number of complaints, police officers waited for the convoy at toll booths on the Ankara route in the Mahmutbey district. The convoy was stopped and police officers evaluated the documents of the drivers one by one.

Each vehicle was fined 108 Turkish Liras for “preventing the travel of other vehicles and jeopardizing traffic security.”

Police also fined 15 earthmoving trucks with the same charges.

“Wedding convoys and the like occasionally distress people in traffic. In these cases, people should inform the police. The police always take necessary action,” a police official said.

Meanwhile, the bride and groom in the wedding convoy said they thought the fine was an April Fools’ Day prank.

“We left Esenyurt to go to the wedding hall in Bağcılar. There was heavy traffic because we were crowded. Police in Mahmutbey stopped us. They fined all of my friends. We first thought it was an April Fools’ Day prank,” the couple said.

In February 2017, a wedding convoy in Manisa’s Sarıgöl district was formed by seven separate excavators. Ali Sarı, 27, who works as a scoop operator in an excavation company, used an excavator as a wedding car. The bride and groom sounded sirens while taking a ride in the excavator around the town center.

The convoy was welcomed in front of the Sarıgöl Municipality Wedding Hall with shawm-and-drum. The vehicles in the convoy had not been fined.

Another weird wedding convoy was formed in the Black Sea province of Ordu in 2016.

The groom was a truck driver, so the bride and groom had used a truck as a wedding car. The wedding convoy was formed by 20 tow trucks by friends of the groom. This convoy had also been fined by police.