A letter from an Ohio police department to an 18-year-old driver is getting a lot of attention on social media.
The North Ridgeville Police Department posted a photo Sunday morning of the ticket an officer gave the teen. It was for going 100 miles per hour in a 65-mile-per-hour zone. In the open letter posted on the department’s Facebook page, the department tells the teen he’s fortunate to have gotten pulled over. If not, something horrible could have happened.
“I can tell you dozens of stories of dead and broken 18-year-old bodies that I’ve pulled from cars,” reads the letter. “Broken bodies that I’ve found in front yards after crashes. Unrecognizable bodies. They thought they were invincible too. They weren’t.”
The hardest part, according to the letter, is telling parents of teens that their child was killed in a wreck.
“Part of your soul disappears every time you have to tell parents that their kid is dead,” it read.
The letter ends with the department saying they’re proud of the ticket they issued and hope the teen has to spend months paying it they realize it wasn’t worth it.
“I hope you can envision me sitting in your kitchen, telling your screaming mother that you’ve been killed,” it reads. “Slow down. Please. You are not invincible. I promise.”
Just four hours after it went up, the post had been shared more than 7,800 times.
