By Mark Price
The Charlotte Observer
WALTON COUNTY, Fla. — An illegal street race across a Florida bridge came to an embarrassing end, when the drivers missed seeing the unmarked sheriff’s office patrol car in their rear view mirror.
The 28-second race was caught on video, too.
It happened Wednesday, Aug. 3, on the Clyde B. Wells Bridge in Santa Rosa Beach, about 65 miles east of Pensacola, according to the Walton County Sheriff’s Office.
“These two chose poorly. Multiple times,” the sheriff’s office wrote on Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=306927541620430
“Racing on the bridge was the first mistake in a series of mistakes that landed both drivers with criminal citations. Among those bad choices, was doing it in front of the chief of operations at Walton County Sheriff’s Office. That’s a bad day.”
Video shows the two revving vehicles slowed on the two-lane bridge to create distance between cars in front of them, then took off.
The chief’s unmarked SUV was behind them the entire time, officials said.
Both males were stopped (off camera) and “charged with racing, which is a criminal citation in Florida,” the sheriff’s office told McClatchy News.
The bridge has been the scene of illegal races in the past, including a 2019 incident in which two teenagers headed to a prom crashed their Camaros into an Alabama family’s pickup, according to The Destin Log. The drivers and the family were injured, but survived, it was reported.
Video of the Aug. 3 race has gotten more than 2,000 reactions and comments on social media, with some complaining the bridge has become a NASCAR track without turns.
“Wished I could have seen the looks on their faces when they got pulled over,” one woman wrote on the sheriff’s office Facebook page.
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