Sometimes I just like to drive fast

An essay on not losing your edge.

All the years I exhibited at art shows, I drove at least thirty thousand miles a year, in all kinds of conditions. I learned how to drive in everything; only ice kept me off the road. I always drove fast.

Driving is a pretty boring occupation; the sooner it’s over the better. I drove standard transmission cars from the onset of my driver’s license until I drove extended vans; I know how to handle a vehicle, from a sporty little turbo six speed to a high profile van.

Oh, and I rode a motorcycle for years, too. Now, that’s a vehicle to handle. When put to it, I could lay sparks on the road.

That was all a long time ago. Now I drive a car friends call The Red Bullet, but it’s just a sturdy, automatic transmission, compact crossover that sits the road.  If I’m in a thoughtful, meandering mood, I obey the speed limits and enjoy the ride. My dad and my sister would be so proud. Dad taught us that if our passenger’s knees moved, we were a careless driver. My sister still obeys the rule of the knees.

The roads I drive to work wind steeply into the valley. In the olden days, good motorcycle roads. On a morning the blood needs a little pumping, a fine road to handle. Two handed driving, eyes open for wildlife, and those motorists who brake at every hill and curve. They certainly ruin a good road.

The road I take almost every morning is posted forty miles per hour. Many years ago it was fifty, but too many teenagers didn’t know how to drive it that fast, so it’s forty, now. I’ve never exceeded sixty, on a fine day with a tail wind. But the one day I hit the sweet spot going into the last bend, what came up the hill but two village patrol cars. Two!

The first rule of exceeding the speed limit is: don’t give them the satisfaction of braking. As a courtesy, I do lift my foot from the accelerator. As we crossed at the curve I had the sight of two flat light bars blazing, one in my rear view mirror and one in the passenger side mirror.  They were out of sight in a second. I knew the soonest they could turn around would be the Boy Scout camp, and I would be nailed before I passed the golf course and stopped at the stop sign.

It never happened.

I recognized one of the officers, and the next time I saw him he said don’t do That again, and I would know what he meant. I generally don’t. But sometimes I need to be sure I haven’t lost my edge.