Land of the Free*

Nick Austin
4 min readJul 21, 2018

I looked at the speeding ticket. It said I was going 75 MPH on Route 12, not too far from Mount Rainier. The penalty: $187. I was surprised the speed limit was so low, considering it was an empty country road with sparse traffic. If you look at the map, you see miles of nothingness. No pedestrians, no school buses, nothing. Speed limit signs were posted miles apart.

Approximate location where I got my speeding ticket. Route 12 (diagonal) is a straightaway with no traffic, and yet a 55 MPH speed limit is strictly enforced.