Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Doesn't anybody else drive the speed limit these days?

All right, already, I'll drive a little faster. Sheesh.

But I know good and well who's going to get pulled over, even with all the other drivers in the world going around me at a hundred miles an hour.

Everybody I know has a leadfoot except for me.

Sometimes I think the anecdotes are right, and the only people who get tickets are the ones who actually pull over when the flashing lights start up behind them. The police see a big batch of speeders, turn on the lights and the siren, and take a chance. Some timid law-abiding soul will always pull over, the rest speed on out of sight, and the one intimidated driver will get a ticket. And he deserves a ticket, for he was SPEEDING.

Item: I have never gotten a traffic ticket.

Unless you count the one I got about 25 years ago for having an expired inspection sticker, which I never paid because when I went to the courthouse and stood in line for over an hour to pay it, I couldn't pay it because the courthouse wouldn't accept a check, so I went to the bank and stood in line for a long time and got some cash, and came back to the courthouse and stood in line for another hour, and when I got to the desk I STILL couldn't pay it because the policeman hadn't turned it in yet, so I wrote a letter of protest which was never acknowledged, and I still haven't paid the fine and so far so good. . . . .

And it cost me ten bucks for a sitter for my two babies so I could stand in lines and still not pay my fine. Not that I remember details like that or anything.

I do tend to be a very cautious driver, though. School buses pass me all the time.

SPEEDING school buses.

Which by all laws of logic and safety should have seat belts, but which by all laws of money-saving and convenience-of-school-system never will.

I go 55. After all, it's the limit in Indiana. I'm not a poky driver, but I do go the limit. (If 55 is poky to you, too bad. Read the signs and don't whine if you're caught.)

65 is speeding. I hope you all get caught and fined. Yes, I really do.

And if you're going any faster than that on the curvy meandering roads around here, I hope you don't have any innocent children in your car.