Driving from Denver to San Antonio, and we stopped at the McDonald’s right off of I-10 in Junction for lunch. While eating, a Junction PD car pulled into the lot, and the officer got out and started walking around, looking at cars with out-of-state plates. He walked into McDonald’s, saw my wife’s Broncos t-shirt and came over to ask if that was our car. I replied that yes, it was, and he said that the dome light was left on. I thanked him and didn’t think much of it until, well, I walked out and looked, and the dome light was off. We finished eating and hopped in the car, and the officer mysteriously “finished” his half-eaten burger at the same time. We pulled out and turned onto the on-ramp. Before we hit the freeway, the officer, who had followed us out of McDonald’s, had turned on his lights and pulled us over. Once he had my license, he told us that he’d stopped us for going 93 in an 80.

Now, let me preface this next part by saying that I drive a Subaru. Not a WRX racer, just a standard, regular old Outback. That onramp was about a quarter-mile long, at most. I could strap two bottles of nitrous and a JATO rocket to my car, and that thing would be lucky to break 70 in a quarter-mile. In fact, I had been watching my speed as I got onto the freeway, and I was only going 67 when he turned on his lights. I asked the officer how he had clocked my speed, and he replied radar, but he conveniently hadn’t locked my speed in. He came back a few minutes later with my ticket, then acted like our best friend when he jovially announced that he’d only written me for 89 in an 80 because he didn’t want to “ruin your trip”. It was at that point that I told him I knew exactly how fast we’d been going, that it wasn’t anywhere near 93 and he knew it, and was he really just writing us a ticket because we live two days away by car. Without breaking his smile, he asked if I’d prefer he go back and re-write my ticket for 93, then without waiting for an answer, told us to have a nice day and went back to his car. I then noticed that there was a convenient breakdown of traffic fines in a pamphlet he’d given me with the ticket, including payment information and a law that prevents judges from talking with you about your ticket before your trial. I guess they don’t want a line of victims at the courthouse telling the judge the same story so many times that he has to dismiss tickets, huh?

Don’t spend money in this town. Don’t stop in this town. Don’t even drive through this town if you can at all help it. And if you’re going on a road trip and are able to take the (lengthy) US277-US190-TX29-US87 route around Junction, make sure you write the town and tell them exactly why you’re doing so. Send a copy of that letter to Kimble County as well, and the Junction courthouse, if you care enough. Certified letters pouring in telling the town and county about the scam being run here are the only way to demonstrate, by way of overwhelming evidence, that Junction, TX, is a town not fit to conduct its own traffic enforcement. This town is one of the far too many examples of why local con artists should not be allowed to handle traffic “violations” on the freeway.