We Recently Took a Trip Over to Dade City, Making Sure to Avoid Going Anywhere Near Brooksville

Coochee Day

We recently took a trip over to Dade City, making sure to avoid going anywhere near Brooksville, the camera enforcement capital of Florida, where you will get a ticket by camera for getting caught under the light as it turns red, or for turning right on red if you exceed 5mph through the turn. Do 6 or 7 mph (which isn't very fast) and you will get a $158 ticket. Don't expect a judge to let you off the hook.

Brooksville was the town we passed through about two months ago where a distinct camera flash went off as we slowly pulled up to a red light (in plenty of time). The car next to us also got a camera flash as he pulled up (also in plenty of time). We never heard anything more about it, but I wonder if someday this will come up on my record as an unpaid ticket. A recent letter to the editor claimed that Brooksville, a town of 7,000 people, made more revenue from camera fines than any other city in Florida.

More and more, there has been a decrease in camera fines for cars going directly through intersections, because communities have been forced to lengthen the yellow light. So what some do (Brooksville in particular) to make up the revenue, is to set very low speeds for drivers turning right on red. It's the right on red where they're really making the money, even when drivers turn red at very safe speeds. It's not about safety, it's about money.

Brooksville recently hosted a two-day Blueberry Festival, but I certainly didn't go (and risk a ticket), despite how much I like blueberries. With all the money they raise from camera tickets, I'm sure they don't miss whatever money the Brooksville boycotters don't spend on food and drink.

Our trip today took us along the Withlacoochee River, then through a town in Sumter County named Croom-A-Coochie, past a dot on the map in Pasco County called Lacoochee (population of 1,345 according to Wikipedia), and then by Trilacoochee (seriously). These are the Central Florida coochees, not to be confused with Sautee Nacoochee, which is in Georgia. With all these coochees, you might think that Charo, the former ubiquitous TV star with the "coochee-coochee" shtick, had come back from the 1970s.

Paul N. Herbert