It's hard to hate a fib this genius.

DISCLAIMER: I have no idea if this is true or not, pure speculation. 

If you live in or around Illinois, you have undoubtedly seen the above story more than a few times from media outlets. The gist of the story is that Illinois Troopers will be working undercover as construction workers to catch speeders going through construction zones.

The story went everywhere.

That's just a few of the tweets I found in 30 seconds on Twitter.

(Sidebar: It's probably been a good month for that Getty model. Can you imagine the shoot? "You want me to caress a radar gun while wearing a hard hat? Whatever.")

While wading through a Facebook comment section on the story I saw a lady ask the question "Why are they telling everyone if they want it to be a surprise?" What that lady didn't understand was that the police don't want to catch people speeding through construction zones, they want people to STOP speeding through construction zones.

And what better way to get people to slow down through construction zones than to create a myth that behind every backhoe is a radar gun waiting to catch you. It's brilliant.

If we can perpetuate this story to the point it becomes an urban legend we could probably cut our construction zone death rate in half and that's what matters.

Yes, the police are "blowing" their cover but I'm sure they'd trade a handful of $375 tickets to save a worker's life.

And MAYBE they aren't lying and there is a radar gun on every bulldozer. It really doesn't matter now. Because now every time you enter a construction zone you're going to think to yourself "I wonder if there's an undercover cop in here?" Every time. I guarantee it. And all of a sudden you're going 45 and the world is a safer place.

An impressive public relations effort from the Illinois State Police on this one. This story really warm's my raconteur-ish soul

Now I'd like to apologize for something I did in this blog. I wrote what I believe is a click-bait headline. I'm sorry about that. I think this is important so I bent my morals for a bit.

 

 

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