I consider myself a safe driver. I’m sober. I’m courteous. I stay within the lines. I yield to pedestrians. I “watch out for the other guy.” I don’t run red lights or stop signs, not intentionally anyway. I’m not what you’d call an angry driver. Unlike some hotheads out there, I keep my horn silent and my comments, and fingers, to myself.
I do have one weakness, though. I drive the way I eat: aggressively, voraciously, and with a lot of gas and gusto. Thankfully, I’m not as messy behind the wheel as I am at the dinner table; otherwise we’d all be in serious trouble.
Time was, way back before I had my license, when I was so naive as to think a person needed a practical reason to speed. Once I sank my chops into the straightaway and tasted of its pleasures, I discovered that driving had more to do with power and self-importance than simply getting to work on time.
Racing to beat the clock infuses the daily commute with an adrenaline rush that would be missing had I left my house a few minutes earlier. It can transform even the most pointless excursion into an urgent mission.
Surely there has no fault overtaken me but what is common to many other drivers. It’s no coincidence that auto manufacturers have appealed, not to our restraint, but to our love of speed, by naming their dream machines after swift, powerful animals like the cougar, the mustang, the jaguar, and the eagle, to name a few. And let’s not overlook such ego enhancers as Firebird, Stealth and Intrepid. Think about it. How many Slugs have you seen on the road? How many Aardvarks?
We may not all be speeders. But most of us are, in one way or another, servants of our respective impulses. Human nature doesn’t obey protocol, nor does it take kindly to external intervention. There are drivers who like to tailgate; others cut out in traffic without looking. Some like to hog the road and bully other drivers. Far too many pilot their vehicles like flight simulators, refusing to acknowledge that there are any real people or objects on the other side of that screen we call a windshield.
However, before we point our fingers at other motorists’ foibles, we should examine our own. Take me, for instance. You would think, considering how I sweat and tremble whenever I see those flashing lights pull up in my rearview mirror, that I would have learned to chew the road more slowly, instead of wolfing it down all at once.
I recall several instances when an officer let me slide with only a warning when, by all rights, he should have fined me up the wazoo. These close encounters have, I admit, scared some of the wind out of my sails and persuaded me to rein in some of that gusto. Apprehend me, and I’m a model of humility and restraint . . . for a while, at least. So much for second chances.
Unfortunately, the system can do little more than clip my wings and threaten me with sanctions. It can make me ashamed of my misconduct. Such is the function of the law. It can never fully quell my desire to devour the road as though it were a slab of deep-dish pizza with a double helping of mushrooms and black olives. Because behind my meek exterior lies a force that longs to break loose—to soar unimpeded by rules, by slow moving traffic, by anything that compromises MY momentum, challenges MY independence, or clutters MY personal landscape. Such is the nature of my nature.
That said, I should tell you, in all fairness, that my luck did eventually run out late one night while I was driving home on North Davis Road in Salinas. (Is that applause I hear?)
I had no good reason to be doing 60-65 mph in a 45 mph zone.There was no fire, no family emergency, no deadline spurring me on. Perhaps it was the sheer exhilaration of hitting the road after eight SLUGGISH hours at work that blasted my judgment out of Earth’s orbit. Add to this the freedom of having no pesky stoplights or poky vehicles that time of night to detain me. To make matters worse, I’d been speeding in like manner, along this same strip, since practically forever, without incident—a track record that contributed, in no small part, to the false sense of immunity I’d enjoyed . . . until now.
The popular rationale, “Everybody speeds and gets away with it,” doesn’t hold much water when that ubiquitous patrol officer singles YOU out from among the multitudes of fellow speeders and holds YOU to account for YOUR actions. Is there ever an ACCEPTABLE excuse for breaking the law? That’s a question you rarely ask yourself while you’re busy breaking it. Maybe you should.
So what made this night any different from all the other nights I’d sped merrily along this road scot-free? Too much exhilaration, no doubt. Overconfidence. Lousy judgment. I was too caught up in my own momentum to notice the patrol car sitting off to the side of the road.
Had I been paying closer attention, I’d have slowed down in plenty of time to avoid detection . . . instead of whizzing past the guy like a damned, demented fool. I can’t believe I let my guard down like that. He tailed me all the way to Blanco Road, waited for me to turn, then switched on the flashers. THAT was when I noticed him. Ah, that dreaded moment of reckoning!
“Do you know why I stopped you?”
“Uh . . . I guess I was going a little too fast.”
“You GUESS? Do you know the speed limit on this road?”
Was that ever a trick question! There was no sense pretending I didn’t, seeing how I’d taken the same route twice a day for the past eighteen years. That would have sounded facetious, not to mention irresponsible.
Then again, if I answered truthfully, I’d be admitting, in effect, that I knowingly broke the law. If I told the cop I couldn’t SEE the road signs (which were everywhere), he might think I was unfit to drive, impound my car, and order me to have my eyes checked. I could have taken the Fifth and refused to answer, in which case the cop would have added “hostile” and “uncooperative” to the list of offenses.
“Careful what you say, Ted,” that inner voice was telling me. “Anything stupid can and will be held against you.” Resourceful genius that I am, I thought I could come up with something the officer hadn’t heard before: a rationale so original, so disarmingly clever, he’d cut me a little slack and let me go. See what you think of this:
I told him, yes, I was aware that the posted speed was 45 mph. Problem was, I was too busy focusing on the road to notice my speedometer. See what I’m saying? So I couldn’t tell how fast I was going. See, ’cause I don’t believe in compromising my attention when I’m behind the wheel. I mean, watching where I’m going has gotta be safer than staring at my dashboard. Right?
I was half-hoping/imagining he’d say something like, “Wow, man, that’s brilliant! I wish more people were as conscientious about their driving as you are! There are so many distracted motorists on the highway these days, texting while driving, talking on cell phones, putting on makeup . . . watching their speedometers. They oughtta rewrite the traffic laws to accommodate creative thinkers like yourself, make it a crime to know how fast you’re going.” As if!
You readers are shaking your heads. What? You didn’t think that was brilliant? Evidently, the cop didn’t either.
Not that he wasn’t friendly. Actually, most of the patrolmen who’ve pulled me over have been friendly. But that spiel about not watching the speedometer didn’t win me any awards that night. (I dunno. I thought it was pretty cool.) I knew the routine: showed him my license and registration. He asked me where I was coming from, where I was headed, whether I’d had anything to drink.
“No, sir! Never when I’m driving!” Which is true. Whatever blunders I may make behind the wheel, being intoxicated isn’t one if them.
“Glad to hear that,” he said, then handed back my license and registration. “Ya gotta learn to slow down, okay? Don’t be in such a hurry.”
You never saw such a puddle of contrition. “Thank you, sir. You’re absolutely right!” I said, palm pressed against forehead. “I’m sorry I screwed up . . . Promise, sir, I’ll be more careful.”
Did this mean he was letting me off the hook? Nah-ah, not this time, I’m afraid. He walked back toward his patrol car. I waited, held my breath. A couple minutes later, he returned with a small document for me to sign. I knew it wasn’t a coupon for Red Lobster.
“I clocked your speed at around 65, but I’m only going to cite you for 60.” That, I don’t have to tell you, was a most generous concession. Those five extra miles over the limit would have netted me an additional point on my license, plus a much stiffer fine.
“Thank you! Thank you very much!” I said. I probably sounded like Elvis on a bad night.
Mind you, $114 ain’t cheap, not in my universe. If I elected to attend traffic school to avoid receiving a point, that would bring the cost to $148. My insurance agent advised me that school was by far the cheaper option, as even one point on my record would have made my premiums skyrocket. These were just the court costs. I still had to cough up another $40 for the school itself, payable on the day of class. (Incidentally, the instructor told me that the bit about the speedometer was one of the most stupid things I could have told the cop. Oh well.)
All in all, I shelled out $200 for one freaking infraction. That’s $200 more than my wife and I have spent on vacations in 10 years. Get the picture? Not so “exhilarating,” is it, having to pay for one’s foolishness? I have no one but myself to thank. I worked hard for this fine, invested a lot of myself . . . and reaped a lot of nothing. My reward was as just as it was punishing, and long overdue. It could have been worse. Imagine the manure I’d be in if the system suddenly held me accountable for every speeding violation I’d committed all the years I’ve been driving, every unrequited transgression I thought I’d gotten away with. Man, shucks! They’d have to chop me up and sell me for body parts just to pay the interest on what I owed!
Government, as many of us learn the hard way, must begin with us. It’s demands self-control. And it’s not for the hungry or the faint of heart. Those of us who cannot manage our appetites, or pilot our craft responsibly, should be prepared to be boarded. Proverbially speaking.
What, if anything, has my experience taught you?
1. Don’t speed.
2. If you must speed, make sure there isn’t a cop around.
3. Above all, don’t go touting like a Cadillac if you’ve got the brains of an Edsel. If a cop does stop you, find a better alibi than the one I used.
* * *
Ted Gargiulo’s stories and essays have appeared in The San Jose Mercury News, The Monterey County Herald, Wilde Times, The Gamut, and The Fringe. Born in New York City, the former stage actor and prize-winning author now lives with his wife in Seaside, California. Ted is currently working on a collection of short stories. He In Me, available from PublishAmerica, is his first published novel.
