I drive a little car with a lot of get up and go. That car can easily coast at about 40 miles per hour, so driving through town in spots where the speed limit is set at an impossible 25 or 30 is difficult for my little speed demon to handle. What's really hard is when you know there is a police station just a block or so from where you are and you know darn well that you can't slow down fast enough to get to the required speed before you get to the place where the speed limit sign is posted. I Can't Drive Twenty Five.
I drive a little car with a lot of get up and go. That car can easily coast at about 40 miles per hour, so driving through town in spots where the speed limit is set at an impossible 25 or 30 is difficult for my little speed demon to handle. What's really hard is when you know there is a police station just a block or so from where you are and you know darn well that you can't slow down fast enough to get to the required speed before you get to the place where the speed limit sign is posted.
That's when you start praying, "dear Lord, please don't let me get a ticket. I know I'm an idiot, but I don't want a ticket." It doesn't matter if you believe in God or not, when in a situation where you are stuck between a rock and a cop, you will be pleading with someone, I guarantee it. I can understand why the speed limit is set low in residential and school districts, but I can't see how 25 MPH is the necessary limit. I've seen little kids on trikes that cruised faster than that. For pete's sake, the speed limit in work zones is 45.
Very few drivers actually like moving at that rate of speed, because it always feels like you're barely moving. You feel as though you could get out and walk faster than your car is going. So what they usually do is coast along at about 35 or 40 until they reach the actual spot where the sign is planted, and then stomp on the brakes, usually leaving half the tire treads behind on the pavement. My favorite technique is to coast until I get to a hill and then coast up it until I hit the desired speed limit. Usually this requires a severe underestimation on my part as to how fast my car can actually drive uphill without my foot on the gas.
The fact is, it can drive pretty fast, thank you. It simply does not like having to slow to a crawl just because of some crazy law. I've noticed that most people won't even try to hit those low speed limits, but will pretty much drive however fast or slow they please, and nobody ever seems to get stopped for doing so. I know better, though. Those people might not ever get caught, but I sure would. No doubt about that.
So I try to slow to a tippy-toe crawl while everyone else on the same stretch of street is doing about fifty, and the cops ignore them all as if a sudden wide-spread case of day blindness has overcome them all at the same time. I know if I broke the law even a little bit those same officers of the law would be breathing down my tailpipe in no time at all.
Let's face it, I can't drive twenty five, and I don't know anyone who can either, but I do my best and try to hold in my impatience until I can get past the prohibitive speed limit zone and get back to normal, which to my car is about 70. It's funny, but the same rules of the road that I apply in town I also apply out on the highway, except in reverse. Out there, I don't want to get a ticket for speeding either, so I have to force my hustling car to slow down to match the highway limit.
Meanwhile, everyone else is driving around me doing ninety. No cops in sight of course, just me in a conspicuous red car, going fify-five all by myself. Knowing me, Someday I'll probably get ticketed for going the speed limit. The charge: Holding up traffic. Don't laugh. I can see it now.
