Iceland Police Tell Tourists to Stop Gawking at the Northern Lights While Driving
Yes, the aurora borealis is beautiful. But keep your eyes on the road in front of you.
Tourists flock to places like Iceland so they can lay eyes on the Northern Lights—and given how pretty the aurora borealis is, who can blame them? But these exceptionally beautiful sights can become a road hazard...if you get so distracted while admiring them that you drive your rental car into a snow bank.
Police in Iceland said that last week they had to pull two people over after watching them drive erratically. At first, but cops thought the motorists were driving drunk, but after pulling the drivers over, the police realized they were completely sober and that their poor driving was due to their infatuation with the lights from the Northern Lights, Iceland Magazine reports. Both incidents took place on the road to Iceland's Keflavík International Airport.
"The driver told the police he saw the Northern Lights and couldn't bring himself to stop looking at them," the police said in a statement, according to Iceland Monitor. "The police asked him to park the vehicle if he wanted to keep on gazing at the sky."
Sounds like a damn good idea to us.
