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OFF BEAT: Even superheroes need car insurance in the U.K.

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You can be faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive and leap tall buildings with a single bound — but if you are driving without insurance you will not be able to outsmart the U.K. Central Motorway Policing Group.

Two hapless motorists, both dressed as Superman, last week were stopped on the highway near Solihull, England, on suspicion of driving without insurance.

The would-be superheroes’ car didn’t have a rear window but was instead accessorized with a red cape much like the comic-book hero.

And despite their attention to detail in aping the Man of Steel’s attire, these two men found their lack of insurance coverage to be their real-life equivalent of kryptonite.

The Central Motorway Police Group was quick to tweet a warning to other motorists that even superheroes need to insure their vehicles.

“Even Superman needs insurance. We don’t work for Lex Luthor, but we had to remove Superman’s wheels from the road,” the police group tweeted.

The officers’ action garnered praise from as far afield as Oklahoma, where a county sheriff tweeted: “Nice work! Not even Superman has a chance against police Kryptonite. He’s much better at flying than driving, anyway. Stay Safe!”

It isn’t the first time that U.K. police have worked with — and against — superheroes in recent years.

In March 2013, a man from Bradford, England, dressed as Batman was hailed a hero for marching a thief into a police station.

His hero status was rescinded, however, when the following month he was arrested for trespass and burglary — committed with the very same man he had shopped to the law that March.

And in 2007, police arrested urban climber Alain Robert, known as “the French Spiderman,” after he climbed Portland House in London without permission.

Mr. Robert is well known to U.K. insurance underwriters, having scaled the iconic Lloyd’s of London building twice.