Back in the 80’s I must have been the only Floridian who didn’t realize that Waldo, Florida was a speed trap. I got a ticket. This little town is in the middle of nowhere, and after going through miles and miles of, well, nowhere, you suddenly enter their town and the speed limit quickly drops down in increments of 10 mph no less than 4 times within blocks. And the cops just sit there like vultures and pounce on every unsuspecting tourist who makes the mistake of driving down that stretch of highway.
It’s been like that for decades, but they’ve gotten away with it because they mostly preyed on tourists who were passing through on their way home from Disney World and found it easier to just pay the fines and go back to their part of the country, chalking it up as yet another vacation expense. Even the AAA website warned people of this area. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. It was just the way it was.
So imagine my joy when I read today that the city council of Waldo has voted to disband its police force for these unethical practices! Apparently the fact that the town’s seven police officers wrote 12,000 speeding tickets last year became something that people could no longer overlook. Think about it. That’s 1714 tickets per cop per year. If they work 5 days a week and get two weeks off for vacation a year, that’s nearly 7 speeding tickets per cop per day in a town with a population of just over 1,000 people. What a crock!
Time to clean house. Sometimes justice prevails. Now, who do I see about getting my money back?
[Image credit: aaa.com]
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