A recent vacation break to Miami almost ended in disaster when the police stopped our car 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. Our plan was to move on to another hotel if we felt like it, but stay put if we were happy with the hotel and what was available on our doorstep.

We spent our first night recuperating from our journey making us ready for a day spent sight-seeing and shopping. We ended an excellent day with a fantastic meal at a seafood restaurant that provided some excellent entertainment along with great service. It was on the drive back to our hotel that things took a turn for the worse.

We were on the highway and a police car pulled in behind us and indicated 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 informed the police officer that we had only arrived the previous day and picked up the hire car from Orlando airport. The friendly and helpful police officer then asked me to open the boot so that he could take a look at the tail lamp.

He shone his torch into the boot and immediately we could see traces of what looked like a white powder all over the trunk lining. The police officer suddenly became serious and he went back to his car where he spent some minutes communicating on his radio. Within only a few minutes a second police car arrived with two officers inside. They told us that we were to accompany them to the police station to answer a few questions.

It was at the police station that it became clear that they didn’t really believe our story and they suspected that we were in fact drug dealers. My girlfriend was understandably very upset by the whole experience. It was a full nine hours before the police were able to verify our story and who we were.

Luckily for us the car hire desk was still manned, even at that late hour, and they were able to provide the police with details of the person who had hired the car before us. We still have no idea if the police were able to track down the person responsible for carrying drugs in the boot of the hire 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.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 16th, 2009 at 11:04 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.