Casey Jones, You Better Watch Your Speed

Trouble ahead, trouble behind.

Over here, everything is metric. Gas comes in liters, there are about 4 liters to a gallon, length is measured in meters, which is a few inches longer than a yard. Distance in is kilometers. There are about 2 km in a mile.

So when we play golf and they tell you it is 100 meters to the green, it is really about 110 yards. Gas costs 1.66/liter, which is close to $7/gallon (!). If a town is 150 kilometers away, it is actually 90 miles.

So now to the point.

The speed limit on the roads in Nelson is 50 km/hr. That is 30 mph. On Friday nights there is a lot of partying and drinking going on so they put extra police on the road.

We were driving home from dinner . Of course, I had nothing to drink, and I was driving at the speed I normally do, totally safe, I thought.

I looked in the rear view mirror and I saw blinking lights. We get pulled over and the policeman said I was speeding, that I was going 70 in a 50. That means I was going 42 mph instead of 30. There is no fooling around here and I got a ticket for 20 over, which is a big deal. If I had been drinking, I could have lost my license, which I don't even have yet.

I found out the next day that you can get a ticket even if you go 5km over the limit. Today, I drove the actual limit all day and realized that since we got here we have been speeding all the time.

We can take care of the fine at the bank. At least it is not as expensive as it is in the states. Here it will cost 120NZ dollars, which translates to about $70 US.

Kimberly can take care of the fee when she goes to town, because as the song says, she pays my ticket when I speed.