View from the Driver's Seat
Apr. 12th, 2006 02:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ellyssianI narrowly avoided a mass-ticket-trap - I think only 2 out of the 4 officers were actively writing out tickets when I went by. How, you may wonder, did I avoid it? Was it due to the stealthy wink-wink of the VW in the opposing lane, with the conspiratorially friendly driver who flashed high beams repeatedly to all of us oncoming potential victims? Perhaps it was due to the fact that every year since I've been driving this route I know that the speed limit on this road is aggressively enforced - it may only be one day a year, but when the entire police force of at least one township appears for the festivities, you know they Mean Serious Business and are intending to Write Many Tickets.
For some reason, that threat works well, not that I don't restrict my speed to a reasonably safe level anyway, but on this particular road I am particularly mindful of exactly what particular part of the dial the needle points. I have only been passed twice on its narrow, no-passing-zone confines, but I have had many a red-faced driver pressed up against my bumper as we navigated that stretch of road - indeed, all the times I can think of complaining about being tailgated, Indian Trail Creek Head Thingie With Many Names I Can Never Remember Road Street or Whatever is the setting. It is narrow, has frequent obstacles, and a posted 40mph limit. 50 is comfortable, although there are stretches where one could go faster, one of which is where the speed trap lieth, for obvious reasons. Chief among those reasons is a large section off to the side of the road where 3 police cruisers and 1 police SUV might sit, just out of the way, with room for 4 or more victims to idle and fume whilst tickets are being authored.
Naturally, just downroad from that, I had Mr. I'm Important in his Mercedes or BMW or Lexus, who really took a greater interest in what my bumper looked like than I would have preferred. How quick they forget, especially when chatting on their Britney Spears headset-equipped cellphone. He came to my attention in one of four passing zones on the extended section of that road - as he zipped past a handful of othersuckers motorists stuck behind little-ole'-10mph-over-the-speed-limit me.
Really burned him that I held to that 10 rule throughout the slower 35mph section, and I saw him veer toward the double-yellow on more than one occasion. However, in those last two passing zones (he probably passed 1-9 other cars in the very first section, just around the corner from the speed trap) he made no move to pass, so perhaps he was content. Maybe he just is that lobster-red color naturally. It really showed well against his white car. Perhaps if he had watched the news earlier in the day - or the night before - he would have learned of that tragic BMW-Mercedes-Lexus street race in East Greenbush, where one racer literally went out in flames. Perhaps he thinks his leadfoot fully encases him, so that he won't be harmed should someone else hit him (I am fairly confident that such folks never consider the possibility that they might be the ones to cause an accident, but I may be wrong.)
In our case, it all ended well: as soon as we hit two lanes, he veered around, passed me on the newly created right, got half a car length ahead, and turned into a driveway of a business - his, I would guess. He seemed so very self-important.
For some reason, that threat works well, not that I don't restrict my speed to a reasonably safe level anyway, but on this particular road I am particularly mindful of exactly what particular part of the dial the needle points. I have only been passed twice on its narrow, no-passing-zone confines, but I have had many a red-faced driver pressed up against my bumper as we navigated that stretch of road - indeed, all the times I can think of complaining about being tailgated, Indian Trail Creek Head Thingie With Many Names I Can Never Remember Road Street or Whatever is the setting. It is narrow, has frequent obstacles, and a posted 40mph limit. 50 is comfortable, although there are stretches where one could go faster, one of which is where the speed trap lieth, for obvious reasons. Chief among those reasons is a large section off to the side of the road where 3 police cruisers and 1 police SUV might sit, just out of the way, with room for 4 or more victims to idle and fume whilst tickets are being authored.
Naturally, just downroad from that, I had Mr. I'm Important in his Mercedes or BMW or Lexus, who really took a greater interest in what my bumper looked like than I would have preferred. How quick they forget, especially when chatting on their Britney Spears headset-equipped cellphone. He came to my attention in one of four passing zones on the extended section of that road - as he zipped past a handful of other
Really burned him that I held to that 10 rule throughout the slower 35mph section, and I saw him veer toward the double-yellow on more than one occasion. However, in those last two passing zones (he probably passed 1-9 other cars in the very first section, just around the corner from the speed trap) he made no move to pass, so perhaps he was content. Maybe he just is that lobster-red color naturally. It really showed well against his white car. Perhaps if he had watched the news earlier in the day - or the night before - he would have learned of that tragic BMW-Mercedes-Lexus street race in East Greenbush, where one racer literally went out in flames. Perhaps he thinks his leadfoot fully encases him, so that he won't be harmed should someone else hit him (I am fairly confident that such folks never consider the possibility that they might be the ones to cause an accident, but I may be wrong.)
In our case, it all ended well: as soon as we hit two lanes, he veered around, passed me on the newly created right, got half a car length ahead, and turned into a driveway of a business - his, I would guess. He seemed so very self-important.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-12 03:27 pm (UTC)So this particular day was at the end of a month, and with that in mind I was actually keeping to the speed limit. Some girl in a silver BMW came up behind me and plastered herself to my back bumper. This girl was a perfect stereotype: bottle-blonde, dressed in pink, yakking on a tiny, chic cell phone, fuzzy dice with her sorority letters hanging from the rearview mirror, in a car obviously bought with Daddy's money. So she sat on my bumper and even honked at me a few times, swerving in and out of the lane. She passed me as soon as she could, rocketing off into the distance with a rude gesture in my direction as she passed.
I came upon her again about fifteen miles later, where she sat fuming by the side of the road with a state police car pulled up behind her. It made me smile.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-13 05:33 am (UTC)Bottle-blonde, on the other hand, has quite a few not-so-good gems in there.
Oh - on that same road on the ride in this morning, she was in a red Trans-Am, and she liked my bumper too. And the swervey-lane-thingie too. No honking, and I can't vouch for the cell phone. Fairly dark tinted glass, so I didn't know it was a she - let alone a blonde she (and actually, I'm still only 63% certain) - until we were stopped at a red light.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-12 03:55 pm (UTC)I know one cause of speeding: it's too easy to get up the speed with hardly noticing the effort.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-12 05:48 pm (UTC)(Evil little laugh) Oh, yes. I so enjoy self-important people.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-13 05:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-12 11:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-13 05:37 am (UTC)I think, sometimes, fault is still applied, but generally speaking, even the owner of the parked car loses. At least that's my impression - I haven't had to experience it, though.