Police in Moscow are to carry out special checks on ambulances after reports that emergency vehicles have been fitted with plush（豪华的） interiors and are being rented out to VIP commuters hoping to dodge¹ the city's abysmal²（糟透的） traffic jams.

 

Random³ checks will be performed on the vehicles after companies advertising⁴ rides in "ambulance-taxis" for upwards⁵ of 6,000 roubles (£120 or $194) per hour appeared on the internet.

 

The vehicles are said to use their sirens to scatter⁶（分散） traffic and deliver harried⁷ businessman to meetings on time.

 

A law enforcement source told Izvestiya newspaper that one such vehicle had already been identified. "During one 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. The police officers opened the automobile⁸ to check it and saw that the interior was fitted out like a high-class limousine⁹（豪华轿车） with comfortable seats for transporting VIP passengers." The source added that inside the ambulance were "not medical personnel but some people in civilian¹⁰ clothes who refused to identify themselves."

 

Moscow's boulevards（林荫大道） and ring-roads often stand still because of ill-parked cars and no restrictions¹¹ on driving in the city centre. The foul-ups are compounded when police block off roads for official cortèges such as that of Vladimir Putin, who causes gridlock when travelling to and from the Kremlin in his Mercedes Pullman.

 

In October, Mr Putin's spokesman said the president would spend more time working at his home, the Novo-Ogarevo estate to the west of the city, to avoid producing bottlenecks¹². Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev's office said he would be travelling more frequently by helicopter.

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