CopLand

Next to our house and visible from our front door is what used to be a two lane country road, currently being widened into a four lane thoroughfare. The construction is expected to last until October, and adds at least five minutes to anywhere we need to go. Ah well, this is the price we pay for moving to up and coming Johnson County.

What we are alternately pissed and amused by; however, is the sting operation our local friendly police officers are staging. Because of the construction, the speed limit changes quite abruptly from 45 to 35 mph. Due east from our house, three to four cops can be seen daily until six PM, standing with radar guns pointing up the street. Need I say that due to the incline of the street, they cannot be seen by oncoming motorists until their cars are practically on top of the cop? They wear orange vests (that's right, kids, JUST LIKE CONSTRUCTION WORKERS), and hide behind orange net fencing and construction cones. When they nail a speeder, they step out into the road and motion the car onto the side street to pay the piper.

As a parent, I am glad that our local police force is enforcing the speed limit. But, well, it just all seems so mean. And tricky. And greedy. Yesterday I watched as they stopped 17 cars in one hour. At $77.00 a pop (don't ask me how I know that) our fair city raked in approximately $1300.00. Give them eight hours a day, five days a week, and that's nearly $210,000 a month. Holy Bacon, Ossifers, is our town really that desperate for funds? I hope your superiors are raising your quotas, at the very least.

All I can surmise is that, since this county offers very few expired tags or drug dealers transporting contraband (at least not in an obvious manner), the powers that be must resort to trickery in order to top off their coffers. For me, I'll be adding ten more minutes to my estimated drive time, and going in the other direction. They've probably already pegged me as the blonde whose husband likes to stand in the front yard and yell into the house, "HONEY, I FEEL LIKE PORK CHOPS FOR DINNER!"