A couple weeks ago I blogged about running a red light and how the city of Murfreesboro has designed a trap to make dirty money, watching you with big brother and then blackmailing minor traffic offenders into paying them off so they don’t report your crime to the state or your insurance.

I took the blog down. I did it on my own free will. Because I didn’t want people to judge me as a bad driver or a whiner. Since, after all, it would only reflect on me, and I’m too small as an individual to come up against a city government.

Until I looked at Google today and noticed that my blog was number one for “SafeStreet Program” and number 5 for “Safestreet”…for an entry I deleted over a week ago. Pretty amazing.

So…that gives me some hope. I recreated the blog. Maybe it get some additional search engine love.

Two weeks ago I finished my accounting classes at MTSU. For the last year and a half I’ve been driving to Murfreesboro, TN, about 45 minutes from my house, twice a week. I’ve learned a lot–and now I have the hours required to sit for the CPA exam.

At first, classes were a lot of fun. After about a year of it, I got pretty tired of them…tired of the drive, tired of the time commitment, tired of not having a life outside of work and classes. I was counting down the days until I got done and could leave Murfreesboro and never return.

So much to my surprise, the next to last day I was going to class I got a letter from the city of Murfreesboro. I opened it up and–much to my surprise–it was photos of me running a red light, along with a blackmail note saying–”we have proof of you running a red light and you need to give us 50 bucks or we’re turning you in to the Tennessee Department of Safety.” (my summary of their words) But let’s remember folks–this is from the CITY GOVERNMENT of Murfreesboro, sending this letter saying to pay them 50 bucks before they turn me over to the TN DoS and a collection agency. How absolutely corrupt is that?

I could go on about how I’m the victim here–I sat at this light for about a total of 20 minutes before running it. There was a train on the other side of the intersection that took up about 10 minutes, and the light was only letting about 5 to 7 cars through at a time. So when I sat there for 4 full cycles plus an entire train crossing…it was pretty ridiculous…but now it makes sense, when you think of it in the context of a trap by the city to make some quick and dirty money.

So today I went to pay the bill online and much to my surprise they even gave me a free VIDEO of me running the red light. It’s too funny. So here you go, world. I’m a criminal. Watch me run the red light.

You can click here if you don’t see the video above