So last week I was in Montego Bay on business. It's always interesting visiting MoBay as each time I visit, the town seems a little smaller.

It almost feels like if you're driving anything bigger than a Mini, negotiating the streets is going to be a bit of a challenge. When you add the chaos that is on Barnett Street with taxis darting in and out of the tiniest gaps in traffic, the drivers seeming not to care too much about the inevitable collisions that almost never happen, MoBay is not good for the blood pressure.

However, spending the night at the Iberostar Hotel can make all that stress disappear in the proverbial heartbeat. However, like most times in my life whenever things seem to be going well, something or someone always turns up to spoil the fun.

On Sunday morning I am heading back to Montego Bay for a quick stop before heading back to Kingston. I am enjoying an easy drive, my foot barely on the gas pedal. The windows are down and there is a nice breeze taking whatever edge there was off a very bright and sunny morning.

As I approach the Holiday Inn, I see a policeman step out into the roadway and signalled for me to stop. No problem, perhaps they are doing spot checks, or looking for someone driving a black SUV, so I nodded and pulled over to the side several metres away. The policeman approaches the passenger window and I say: "How you doing officer, how can I help you today?" A wry smile appears beneath the ponderous helmet he wore and he says smugly: "You were doing 73kph in a 50kph zone, sir." My day was ruined. I took a quick glance at my speedometer before I realised that there was nothing to see as I had come to a stop.

He then asked me for the registration and my driver's licence. I wish I could tell you the words directed at him that raced through my mind as I reached for the documents. I was barely moving and yet this man claims I was doing 73kph which by the way is less than 50 miles an hour. I alighted from the vehicle to hear another policeman, this one armed with the radar gun, ask his colleague if I wanted to see the reading. Like that was going to help me. I gracefully declined while in my mind I was telling him where to go stick the radar gun.

I got a ticket for $5,000

To make a long story short, I got a ticket for $5,000 and I am mad. My anger, however, is not directed solely on the cops, but on the idiots who came up with these speed limits? This is not 1907 when it required a lot of effort on the part of the engines to get up to 30 miles an hour. These days, the second you turn the engine on the car is already at 30 miles an hour or 50kph. While leaving MoBay a couple of hours later, I slowed to the required 50kph as I approached the spot where I got the ticket.

Oh-My-God! I was moving so slowly in my mind's eye I could literally see a guy riding a bicycle and quite effortlessly he overtaking me, while on the sidewalk people out for a casual stroll were making their way past the vehicle, kind of the way they do when you're stuck in traffic. It literally felt like I was standing still.

To add insult to injury, as I looked in my rear-view to see traffic rushing towards me, leading the pack was a police squad car that zipped by me so fast it almost blew me off the road. Where were the damned cops who gave me the ticket earlier? What about that cop car and the scores of vehicles zipping by me as I observed the ridiculous road code? Life sucks.

Seriously though, the lawmakers need to look closely at those speed limits. 50kph is not only unreasonable it's ridiculous. What about 65 or 70kph? You don't have to put your foot on the pedal to get to 50, ask anyone with a decent car. They might as well ask you to come out and push the car if they want you to maintain that speed through 'built up' areas. Maybe we should just go back to the horse and buggy because then we could make the speed limit 50kph for every roadway across the island.

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