World renowned superhero Florida Man is up to his never-usual antics again, this time setting a new speed record — for how quickly you can violate a new speed law. As we previously reported, Florida has just enacted new penalties for so-called “super speeders,” people driving 50 mph over the speed limit or driving over 100 mph “in a manner that threatens the safety of other persons or property.” Uh, so just drive over 100 in a calm and respectable manner, then?
Well, this unnamed Florida Man just couldn’t manage that, and what’s more, he couldn’t manage it very, very quickly. Just two minutes after midnight (the hands that threaten dooooom…) on July 1, the day the law went into effect, he was caught by the Orange County Sheriffs doing 104 mph in his Buick Envision. Oh no! Clearly, he was doing so in a threatening manner, because they pulled him and his passenger Florida Woman over. Just to really stick it to him, the arresting officer even told him that the law was only a few minutes old. Ouch.
Serious law or marketing stunt?
The new super speeder law has been a few years in the makign. It was kicked off by the tragic death of an 11-year-old boy in the state by a woman driving 85 mph in a 35-mph zone. For killing a child, she got merely a slap on the wrist: License suspended for eight years, a $1,000 fine, and 120 hours of community service. That’s it, no jail time. Apparently in America, accidental deaths are fine as long as you do them with a car. Just ask country singer Conner Smith.
So, upping penalties on reckless driving makes a lot of sense, right? Maybe, maybe not. First off, this law might not even have applied to the incident above, since the driver may have been going 83 or 84 mph and thus wouldn’t have qualified, as it wouldn’t have been over 50 mph above the limit. Also, there’s that weird “in a manner that threatens” provision, so again, driving nice and calm at high speed is still okay I guess?
Possibly, this super speeder law is meant to be a kind of marketing move, as the sheriff office’s Facebook video demonstrates. Get a couple of snazzy arrests, make some splashy videos, hopefully spook the good people of Florida into driving in a non-threatening manner.
None of this helps poor Florida Man, who was literally put in cuffs and hauled off to the police station. All he wanted was to drive insanely fast and endanger the lives of all around him! In America, is that really so wrong?
