If I was going to drive through Brookside, Alabama, would you have advice for me?

Don't.

John Archibald is a columnist at alabama.com.

Don't at all.

My advice to you is don't.

And the reason he is warning you to stay away from Brookside, a small town just outside

of Birmingham, is simple.

That's the cops.

The only reason you would go that direction is if you were going from say Birmingham to Memphis

or something like that on Interstate 22, but they've managed to acquire a mile and a half

of police jurisdiction on the Interstate.

So that's where they make their money.

Making money from pulling people over on the highway is not news.

The way the police in Brookside do it, that is.

And I've peppered a lot of communities like this that did the same sort of thing, but

just never quite on the same scale.

I mean, half of your city budget coming from fines and forfeitures, nobody can look

at that and say, that's the way government was designed to run.

It's interesting in alabama because the state legislator years ago was arrested, was

taken twice for speeding.

He had a law pass that said, you know, towns under 19,000 cannot issue speeding tickets

on the Interstate.

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