The cops in Cranston say the speed limit in a school zone is 20 miles an hour when school is in session. So yesterday, when the First Day of School rolled onto Budlong Avenue in Cranston, (Budlong? There’s a nifty drug reference) cops were there with their cancer causing radar guns in search of errant drivers too distracted to go exactly 20 miles an hour through the school zone.

Try going 20 miles an hour in any vehicle made in the world except a 13 horsepower golf cart. My Ford Edge goes 20 miles an hour just moving it out of my driveway. I have to take Quaaludes in order to sense 20 miles an hour worth of speed on my Schwinn.

Cops are SERIOUS about seat belt use even though to my knowledge I’m not required to wear a seat belt in Rhode Island unless I’m pulled over for other offenses. They are also SERIOUS about tagging drivers doing more than 20 miles an hour in a school zone.

I suggest that from now on when entering one of these radar gun, revenue producing police pickpocket operations, you simply get out of the vehicle, ask how much the fine is going to be, and pay before you proceed. Or send it in by mail ahead of time if you know you’ll be driving along BUDLONG Avenue or any of the other streets that cruise past these precious little play pens of money hungry hustles. Or…put the car in neutral, get out, and push it thru the school zone while someone else steers. If no one else is available, sit in the vehicle, put it in neutral, turn off the engine, and roll at a speed a 1 year old kid might attain crawling on all fours on an NHRA sanctioned drag strip.

Failing all that, just suck it up and do your best to go as slow as you can through one of these speed traps. It used to be cops like this hid behind billboards in old 1930’s gangster films. Today, they stand out there proud to be serving the public while those radar gizmos they aim at you irradiate every organ in their body. Hopefully they’ll remember that when cancers start popping up like precincts on their colons, kidneys, and brain tissue.

And I certainly hope these officers, sworn to uphold the law and produce lots of taxpayer funded profit for their community chests, remember, that when they’re diagnosed with these weird cancerous afflictions, you paid for it.