A recent holiday excursion to sunny Florida soon turned into a nightmare when police stopped and searched the hire car that we were driving due to a broken tail light.
My girlfriend had persuaded me to take a last minute package holiday to Florida. We’d been lucky enough to get a really cheap last minute fly-drive deal that gave us 7 nights to explore Orlando and enjoy the Gulf coast.
We flew from Gatwick to Orlando airport and went straight to the car hire desk to collect the keys to our car. We’d pre-arranged the car that we wanted and had booked the first two nights in the Clarion Hotel which is just across the road from the Wet’n'Wild theme park, close to international drive. If we liked the hotel our plan was to stay put, otherwise we would be free to move on to another location.
Our first night was spent resting in the hotel ready for our first full day which we spent sight-seeing and shopping. We finished the day at a fantastic fish restaurant that served some really delicious seafood with great service and entertainment thrown in. It was on our journey back to our hotel that things began to go wrong.
When we got onto the highway a police car pulled in behind us and inidicated that we should stop. The police officer told me that one of my tail lights wasn’t working and asked me to step out to take a look. I explained that it was a rental car and that we had just arrived in the country only yesterday. The friendly police officer suggested that I pop the trunk and he would check the lamp, which was very king of him.
He shone his torch into the boot and there were clearly some traces of what looked like a white powder covering the trunk lining. The police officer’s manner changed immediately and he returned to his vehicle where he spent some time communicating on his radio. It was only a couple of minutes before a second police car arrived with two police officers inside. They told us that we were to accompany them to the police station to answer a few questions.
At the station it became clear that the police suspected that our story wasn’t true and that we were in fact international drug dealers who had just emptied a trunk load of cocaine somewhere in Orlando. My girlfriend was incredibly upset by the whole experience. It took no less than nine hours before they could verify who we were and that we were genuinely there on holiday.
Luckily people at the car hire firm were still working at that late hour and they were able to provide police with full details of the previous person who had driven the hire car. I’ve no idea if the police ever managed to catch up with the individual responsible for carrying drugs in the boot of the car.
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Travel tip: We saved a fortune on airport parking by booking online, in advance. Also, make certain that your travel insurance policy covers you for legal expenses abroad.
