I’m back from my trip, and I must say that is was quite enjoyable. For my five rounds I shot 88, 91, 98, 94, and 93. My goal was to keep all my scores under 100, which I achieved. Of all the courses I played, I liked Ogallala the best; probably because I played the best there. The greens at Gothenburg was like putting on a pool table – lots of 3 puts that day.
There were two parts of the trip that were less than enjoyable. First, my friend Brian was driving through downtown McCook and got a speeding ticket for going 39 in a 25. This is on US Highway 6 which is 35 MPH through the whole town except for about five blocks. I’m guessing they don’t give warnings to city slickers, but it would have been a nice gesture.
On the way out of town, the next day, I volunteered to drive. I was careful to maintain the speed limit through McCook and all other towns. Outside of the towns the limit was 65 and I kept it under 75. I’ve always been of the mind that no cop would bother pulling someone over for less that 10 miles over the speed limit. Sadly, I was wrong. I was cited for doing 74 in a 65. The fine for that is $25 and the court costs are $41. The State of Nebraska can’t possibly be making any money on that transaction if you consider the time involved to process a citation.
If the ticket had been issued in Omaha, I would definitely show up for court. I think the chances that the cop would show up to prosecute a $25 ticket are not that good. However, I won’t be driving to Beaver Falls for this ticket. I don’t even know where that is, but I do know that it’s more than four hours away. Also, I suspect that Barney Fife has nothing better to do than show up to court that day. He didn’t have anything better to do than write me a ticket for nine freaking miles over the speed limit.
Yes, I’m a little bitter about the whole situation. The next time I have the opportunity to spend some money in Furnas County, I’ll be passing.
Here is a glossary for readers who are citizens of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (‘Limeys’):
putting on a pool table = putting on a barbilliards table
on US Highway 6 = on the M6
they don’t give warnings to city slickers = I’ve no idea what this means
about five blocks = I’ve no idea what this means
Barney Fife = I’ve no idea who this person is
nine freaking miles = I couldn’t possibly say before the 9pm watershed
Furnas County = Gwynedd, perhaps?
Hi Dick! Sorry to hear that your trip was not the best but it’s pretty much the same over here too. The local constabulary know exactly where to lie in wait. It’s a shame that most people caught are usually not the type of folk that make problems, at the same time the real troublemakers have a pretty good idea about how to not get caught themselves.
Thanks for the translation Jamie. Here’s the rest: Warnings are tickets that have no consequences (fines, court appearances). City slickers are what small town people think of big city people – they don’t like them.
1 mile ~ 12 blocks. I have no idea how many kilometers (kilometres) that is.
Barney Fife was a policeman on a US situational comedy (played by Don Knotts). He was really full of himself and his authority as a police officer went to his head; even though his jurisdiction was a very small town.
Nebraska is divided into 108 counties. Furnas was the name of the county were I was pulled over.
Thanks Dick. I won’t ask what the ‘Weekend Picks’ thing is all about!
LOL, Dick. When I saw McCook, I thought, wow, he didn’t even make it to “western Nebraska”. If you go about 100 miles north and west, then you’ll run into the “real” West. Oh, yeah, they have their Barney Fife’s, too.
It used to be easy to spot outsiders in Nebraska, because the license plate had the county number at the beginning. For instance, Omaha was always 1, Lincoln 2,… Scottsbluff was 21, Alliance was 65, etc. So, even in-state “city-slickers” stood out in the county.
My wife was given a Australian $125 speeding fine the other day – for doing 63 km/hr in a 60 km/hr zone
Maybe she should have claimed parallax error.