Hero of motorists exasperated by fines or vandals who endanger lives: in Italy, an unknown person nicknamed “Fleximan” sabotages road radars, provoking intense debates in the media and on the networks.
Cars and speed are an ancient passion in Italy, home of Lamborghini, Maserati and, of course, Ferrari, whose rampant horses wear out their shoes on the legendary Imola and Monza circuits. A certain taste of freedom that has a price, for the drivers and their victims: fines of several hundred euros on the one hand, more than 3,000 deaths a year, on the other. Obviously, there is a lot of talk about “Fleximan”.
Carabineros mobilized
The police arrested a 50-year-old man on Thursday suspected of having destroyed two radars with his bare hands in November, but according to the authorities it is not the “Fleximan” that has destroyed a dozen radars in the North in recent months. from Piedmont to Veneto passing through Lombardy.
He owes his nickname to the electric grinder he uses to knock down radars by cutting them with his foot, as demonstrated by video surveillance images where he appears with his face hidden under a hood, alone or with an acolyte. Interrogated by AFP, the carabinieri assured that they were working “day and night” to try to stop him.
On social media, the troublemaker is often portrayed as a hero to motorists exasperated by the state’s “uproar”, adorned with the extravagant attributes of superheroes. There are even t-shirts with his image for sale on Amazon.
In Padua, in the north of the country, a graffiti artist dedicated a mural “work” to him that represents the iconic character of Uma Thurman in kill bill armed with a saber in one hand and a radar in the other.
“Symbol of selfishness”
Relatives of traffic accident victims deplore their actions and the publicity that accompanies them.
The councilors are also torn between those who refuse to “let the criminals win” and those, like Marco Schiesaro, mayor of Cadoneghe, in Veneto, who covertly support him.
“I was no longer convinced (by the presence of a radar in my town), and I decided not to use it again,” he told the press.
The press, which, inevitably, is equally divided. While the newspaper Libero, close to the ultra-conservative government majority, mentions acts of “resistance” against “bureaucrats and moralists” – without, however, endorsing “Fleximan” -, the very serious Corriere della Sera denounces the “fake” product news”.
“Robin Hood stole from the rich to give to the poor. Fleximan steals lives. He is not a hero, but a new symbol of selfishness,” criticized the main Italian newspaper on Friday.
In 2022, 3,159 people died on Italian roads, or 53 deaths per million inhabitants according to the European Commission, slightly more than in France (49), significantly less than in Romania (86), but 2.5 times more than in Sweden.
A real road safety problem
Distracted driving is the main cause of traffic accidents in Italy (15%), ahead of failure to obey traffic lights (13.7%) and speed (9.3%), according to the Istat statistics agency.
Speed, again, at the center of a controversy between the city of Bologna, led by the left, which has just lowered it to 30 km/h, and the far-right deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, in charge of transport. An “ideological choice” that would allow “better listening to the birds singing,” he mocked, and a 90% greater chance of survival than at 50 km/h.
An object of worship, the automobile also continues to be a source of industrial power in Italy. If in December, for the first time in a month, the Volkswagen group sold more vehicles than Fiat, the sector continues to employ more than 200,000 people for an annual turnover of 150,000 million euros.
The Head of Government, Giorgia Meloni, even criticized this week the leaders of the Stellantis group, born from the merger of PSA (Citroën) and Fiat-Chrysler, for “privileging” French interests.
Source: BFM TV
