Dave Barry on drivers and speed limits! (lane, lights, highway)

[4StanleyCups]

From Dave Barry, circa 1988 and still true today!

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I think it's getting worse. I'm talking about this habit people have of driving on highways in the left, or "passing", lane despite the fact that they aren't passing anybody. You used to see this mainly in a few abnormal areas, particularly Miami, where it is customary for everyone to drive according to laws of his or her country of origin. But now you see it everywhere: drivers who are not passing, who have clearly never passed anybody in their entire lives, squatting in the left lane, clogging up the transportation arteries of our very nation.

What I do, when I come up behind these people, is the same thing you do, namely pass them on the right and glare at them. Unfortunately this tactic doesn't seem to be working. So I'm proposing that we go on to the next logical step: nuclear weapons. Specifically I'm thinking of atomic land torpedoes, which would be mounted on the front bumpers of cars operated by drivers who have demonstrated that they have the maturity and judgment necessary to handle tactical nuclear weapons in a traffic environment. I would be one of these driveres.

Here's how I would handle a standard left-lane blockage problem: I would get behind the problem driver and flash my lights. If that failed, I'd honk my horn until the driver looked in his rearview mirror and saw me making helpful suggestive hand motions indicating that he is in the passing lane, and if he wants to drive at 55, he should do it in a more appropriate place, such as the waiting room of a dental office. If that failed, I'd sound the warning siren which would go, and I quote, "WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP". Only if all these measures failed would I proceed to the final step, total vaporization of the car (unless of course it had one of those BABY ON BOARD signs).

Too violent, you say? Forgive me, I'm a little tense, is all, from driving behind these people. But something has to be done, and I figure if word got around the members of the left-lane slow-driver community that they had a choice of either moving to the right or turning into clouds of charged particles, many would choose the former.

It is not entirely their fault. Part of the problem is all those signs on the interstates that say SPEED LIMIT 55. I am no psychologist but I believe those signs may create the impression among poorly informed drivers that the speed limit is 55. Which of course it is not. We Americans pretend 55 is the speed limit, similar to the way we're always pretending we want people to have a nice day, but it clearly isn't the real speed limit, since nobody, including the police, actually drives that slowly except people in the left lane.

So the question is, how fast are you really allowed to drive? And the answer is: Nobody will tell you. I'm serious. The USA is the only major industrialized nation where the speed limit is a secret. I called up a guy I know who happens to be a highranking police officer and I asked him to tell me the real speed limit, and he did, but only after he made me promise I wouldn't reveal his name or his state or above all the speed limit itself. Do you believe that? Here in the USA, home of the refurbished Statue of Liberty, we have an officer of the law who is afraid he could lose his job for revealing the speed limit.

When things get this bizarre, we must be dealing with federal policy. Specifically we are dealing with the US Transportation Secretary, who is in charge of enforcing our National Pretend Speed Limit. The Transportation Secretary learned that motorists in a number of states are driving faster than 55 miles per hour, and threatened to cut off these states' federal highway funds. So, to keep the Transportation Secretary happy, the police have to pretend they're enforcing the 55 limit, when in fact they think it's stupid and won't give you a ticket unless you exceed the REAL speed limit, which varies from state to state and even from day to day, and which the police don't dare to talk about in public lest it further upset the Transportation Secretary.

I told my friend that this system creates a lot of anxiety in us civilian motorists, never knowing how fast we're allowed to go, and he said the police like it, because they can make the speed limit whatever the hell they want it to be, depending on how they feel. "It used to be", he said, "that the only fun you had in police work was police brutality. Now the real fun is to keep scr*wing with people's heads about what the speed limit is."

He was just kidding, I am sure. Nevertheless, I think we need a better system and fortunately I have thought one up. Here it is: The states should say the hell with the federal highway funds. They could make a lot more money if they set up little roadside stands where you could stop your car and pay $5, and a state employee would whisper the speed limit for that day in your ear. What do you think? I think it makes more sense than the system we have now. Of course, the Transportation Secretary wouldn't like it, but I don't see why we should care, seeing as how he or she probably gets chauffered around in an official limousine that is of course totallly immune from traffic laws. Although I imagine it would be vulnerable to atomic land torpedoes.

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[Soviet]

This was kinda funny