The Confession

      I have a confession to make.  It seems to upset quite a few people.  I’m always in my car when I do this thing.  I am normally alone because I have to be.  When people are with me and I do this they look at me like I beat puppies.  They roll their eyes and in some cases yell at me.

     “What the hell are you doing?”  “What are you thinking?”  “Not with me in the car?”  “I have places to be.  We don’t have time for this shit!”

     I’m not trying to do anything nasty.  I’m not doing it to be a clown or a pain.  I have to admit, I love doing the posted speed limit.  

     This hasn’t always been the case.  Most of my cars have seen speeds north of 120 miles per hour.  There have been acts of raging stupidity on two lane dirt roads with no visibility.  There has been hydroplaning in summer and sliding across ice in the winter.  I have been lucky enough to have walked away from every accident I’ve been in where I was the driver.  

     I don’t know what prompted doing the speed limit.  It could be that there was a significant gas savings.  Adaptive cruise control may have helped.

     For those who don’t know, this is where the car uses its sensors to gauge the space between the car in front of it and itself.  It then uses those sensors to keep a set distance between the two vehicles.

     This means if the car in front of me slows down, the car I’m driving slows down.  I found this out by renting a car when mine was in the shop.  At first I hated it but by the end of the weekend I loved it.

     When I got my car back I embraced the local cruise control life.  I wasn’t slamming on my breaks when I came around a corner and a police car was parked with its radar focused making its quota.  I wasn’t racing other cars just to meet up with them at the next stop light.

     In the past I used cruise on the highway.  I had a 50 mile drive on a relatively straight run for about 8 years.  Would typically leave the house at 5:45 in the morning.  There weren’t many cars on the road until the last 5 miles.  When you have to squeeze every last gallon out of the tank, every little bit helps.

     Turn the interior lights to their lowest setting.  Keep the heat and AC off until you absolutely need them.  Keep the windows rolled up.  Turn off the radio.  Pin the cruise somewhere between 55 and 60.  This can add an extra 5 to 10 miles in a pinch.

     The adaptive cruise control in the rental just let me set it and forget it.    I could just put my mind on autopilot.  My main car doesn’t have adaptive cruise.  It’s 14 years old.  I’m happy the Bluetooth connects to my phone most days.  It’s just regular cruise control so I still have to pay attention to make sure my hood doesn’t end up in the trunk of the car just ahead of me.  

     BUT that’s the thing about doing the posted speed limit.  There aren’t a lot of cars just ahead of me.  They are WAY ahead of me.

     The cars behind me, though, that’s a different story.  I have seen people get unreasonably upset when they are behind a car that is driving the speed limit.  This is especially true when they can’t pass.  I have had lights flashed at me.  People have beeped their horns like they were an ambulance headed to the hospital with a life and death emergency.

     I didn’t set the speed limit.  I didn’t write the rules.  The rules were written for me and have always been imposed on me.  I think that’s why I’ve hated them so much.  It’s amazing how people react when you embrace the rules they’ve set and then expect them to follow the rules they’ve set for you.

     When people finally do get a chance to pass I have been flipped all manners of the middle finger and called every derogatory name you can imagine.  I am not a complete asshole.  If I realize people need to pass and it’s safe enough to do it, I pull off to the side and let them pass.  I know what it’s like to really have to get somewhere faster even if you don’t want to be where you’ve got to go.

     The angriest people seem to think the rules are for OTHER people to follow.  If you check the history of the most ardent rule follower you will typically find the most historically egregious rule breaker.  Hell, I’ve been north of 120 miles/hour many times. When you check to see who wrote the rule, you will find a person who themselves could never follow it.

     I mean they set the limit.  They wrote the rules.  But the rules were written for other people, people like me.  The rules were written to be imposed on other people, people like me.  I love doing the posted speed limit especially when the people who wrote the limit for me are forced to follow that same limit themselves.