Ghost riding the Po Po.

“Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry”  Thomas Jefferson. 

I want all of you to keep that quote in the back of your mind while you are reading this post.   A couple of months ago, I started to notice something odd.  Pulling out of my road and turning onto U.S. 17 in Cleveland, I caught sight of a Sheriff’s Office cruiser sitting in the median between the two lanes.  A quick check of my seat belt and I stepped on the gas.  Pulling out, I noticed that the car lacked a deputy.  It was just sitting there in the right of way.  Later that night when I returned, the vehicle was still there, in the same spot,  as vapid as the minds of most of our elected officials.

There the cop car sat for four more days.   Then it was gone.  A couple of days later, the vehicle reappeared down the road a ways and parked once again in the right of way.  And so it has been for a couple of months watching the empty squad car sitting in various locations along Route 17.   I understand what is going on.  The vehicle is being parked and left in the hopes that speeders will see the car and slow down assuming that there is a deputy running radar and writing traffic citations to fill his quota.  Thereby hoping to minimize traffic accidents and such.

WARNING: Legalese follows.  Now, Florida state statute 316 covers this kind of thing.  I will save you the technical jargon and give you the highlights.  316.194 says that if a vehicle has been left within 30 feet of the pavement edge for a period exceeding 48 hours, it is the responsibility of law enforcement to have the vehicle towed to a safe location and stored at the owners expense.  There are exceptions written into the law for law enforcement, however in every law I can find, the legislation implies that exceptions are for Officers performing an action in the line of duty. Since there is no Officer present, it is hard to see where he or she might be performing anything in a line of duty.

Now I would like to challenge any one of my readers to go park your vehicle on the median of a state road and see how long it takes for it to disappear.  No, go ahead, I’ll wait.  I’ll bet that car disappears pretty quickly.  In fact, a Florida Highway Patrol officer I spoke with told me that they rarely tolerated such apparently abandoned vehicles for longer than 6 hours before taking action.  And there is a very good reason for this.  Vehicles sitting in the right of way can quickly go from being a nuisance to become a full blown traffic hazard.  What may have been a recoverable loss of control into the median can quickly become a head on collision with a parked car resulting in serious injuries.  Now picture that scenario with a county owned vehicle and imagine the legal liabilities that would follow.

So, the question you knew was coming: Why is it OK for the Sheriff to leave his vehicles scattered in the right of way on roads in the county and not OK for the rest of us to do it? Why does the Sheriff not do what any of us would have to do and ask a property owner if we could park our vehicle on their property for a few days? Is it because they are law enforcement and they believe that this law does not apply to them?  If that is the case, what other laws do they believe do not apply to deputies?  I would defer you back to the first thing I made you read when you clicked on this page.  Certainly parking your car does not on the surface appear to be a form of tyranny.  However, when we the people elect officials and grant them authority under our Constitution, we expect them to follow the rules and the laws that they swore to protect.  Remember, tyranny never starts as a full blown assault.  It starts with the little things and grows from there…