Driving through Matlacha on Pine Island Road.
By David McRee of BlogTheBeach.com.
Did you catch the big news from Matlacha and Pine Island?
Here’s the story: http://www.fox4now.com/Global/story.asp?S=10317894
It goes like this. Grandma and Grandpa pull out of the Sandy Hook Fish House in Matlacha onto Pine Island Road. A carload of young whipper-snappers pulls up behind them and starts harassing them. Grandma pulls over to let them pass, then pulls back onto the road. Said whipper-snappers decide to continue harassing them and try to cause an accident. Grandma gets scared (rightly so).
She calls 911, and brandishes her handgun. Young road ragers flag down a police officer at the intersection of Stringfellow and Pine Island Road and tries to say grandma was actually the road rager. Cops believe grandma’s story.
The restaurant employee tries to blame the road rage on the variable speed limits through Matlacha, but I say baloney. Stringfellow road is just as bad for road rage and it has one speed limit pretty much the whole way. Road rage isn’t caused by confusion over speed limits, it’s caused by idiots who can’t control themselves.
Most people have never heard of Pine Island or Matlacha. It’s kind of near Cape Coral and Sanibel Island, right on Charlotte Harbor. It’s mostly a fishing and agricultural island with no beaches. They grow great mangoes.
There is one road onto the island, through the village of Matlacha, and one main road that runs the approximately 18 mile length of Pine Island. Many of the locals get very angry if they are driving behind you and you want to drive the speed limit. I love Pine Island, but I don’t like driving on Pine Island Road or Stringfellow Road because I prefer to drive the speed limit. Burnt Store Road is just about as bad.
There’s nothing more unnerving than having a huge pickup truck on my bumper with an angry Pine Island resident that wants to drive 20 mph over the limit. So this road rage incident doesn’t surprise me at all. Good on grandma for sticking up for herself. I frequently pull off the road and let them rage on by. Really now, what’s the big hurry?
There’s virtually no where to go on Pine Island. And I hope it stays that way–quiet.
Like grandma illustrates, people in small towns tend to be self-reliant. They don’t depend solely on the cops for protection. They know how to protect themselves.
Homemade sign seen on Stringfellow Road property: “Is there life after death? Trespass and find out.”
