Call AAA not FHP

Two teens said they waited on the side of a highway on Saturday night for more than an hour for the aid of state troopers before grabbing a lug wrench and helping themselves.

Clay County mother Cindi Penrod said the Florida Highway Patrol left her daughters in the dark, and that she was worried after the girls had car trouble on the highway.

The 17- and 14-year-old girls were on Interstate 295, between 103rd Street and Blanding Boulevard, when they blew a tire.

"It was dark and right on the highway. I didn't know if anybody was going to get in an accident and hit my car, or if someone would come out of the woods. I didn't know what would happen. I was pretty scared," said Savanah Macauley.

So, the teens called their mother.

"They said, 'Mom, I have flat. What should I do? Should I just go ahead and change the tire?' Being a protective parent, I didn't want her out of the car on the side of the road at night," said Penrod.

She told her daughter to call the FHP, and a dispatcher told the teen a trooper was on the way. But the trooper never showed up.

FHP said an officer was dispatched and did a loop around the general area, but never found the girls.

"This is a case where after they were unable to locate, and she was not called back to see if she was still there because the officer said she couldn’t find her. Then, other things started happening and she had to be dispatched somewhere else," said FHP Lt. Bill Leeper. "It fell through the cracks."

"In the meantime, I'll get some roadside assistance for my kids, and we'll take care of things ourselves," Penrod said.

I'm sorry, but it isn't the government's responsibility to change your damn tire for you. If you can't do it yourself, or have the forethought to have a travel service like AAA, then maybe you should have some friends on speed dial that can help you out. FHP has better things to do....oooh, like stopping speeders and attending to accidents. Too many people rely on the nanny state first and foremost instead of trying to get it done themselves.