‘Putin made me do it.’ Watch a driver try to get out of a speeding ticket in Florida
A man was pulled over in North Florida on Tuesday and gave an unusual excuse as to why he was speeding.
According to a Facebook video from the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office, a deputy repeatedly asked the driver in Palm City if he knows why he was stopped. The unnamed driver was reportedly going 50 mph in a 30 mph zone.
“Do you know the reason I stopped you? How fast do you think you were going?” asks the deputy.
“40?” the driver says. “I’m so sorry, sir.”
“Don’t even,” says the deputy.
The driver then launches into a series of excuses.
First up: He was “looking at this thing,” aka his dashboard, and trying to get the car (a Dodge Challenger) out of Sport Mode, a button on some models that can be adjusted to improve performance.
The deputy wasn’t having it.
“I literally saw you run the stop sign, make a left turn and then hop on the gas! I was sitting right at the intersection. So your excuse is?”
The driver then comes up with another reason for his alleged transgression: “I saw a car coming and I wanted to get out before them.”
As the driver hands over his license and registration and the deputy seems to get more and more annoyed, he pulls out Excuse No. 3.
“The truth is: I just found out that Putin says he is going to launch thermonuclear war. I was trying to get back to my house to find out what is going on. I’m freaking out here. I got people in Ukraine.”
Though posted on Tuesday, the sheriff’s video captioned “Putin made me do it” was dated Feb. 24. That was the day that the Russian leader began his invasion of Kyiv. The president has yet to launch a nuclear strike.
A FCSO spokesman told the Miami Herald that mentioning the crisis abroad did not get the driver out of the ticket.
This story was originally published March 2, 2022 at 12:57 PM.
