So I was making the usual drive home from work tonight, and like I often do, I started to wonder why car speedometers go up so high. I mean we cannot hope to test out the theory that our cars can reach the maximum velocity posted on those little dials without running the risk of a very pricey ticket and possibly a license suspension and car impoundment...so why tempt us? Seriously. It's quite unfair and misleading to say the least. most cars can't even reach the speeds in which they claim to on those little dashboard lit monitors that sit there staring back at us, tauntingly. I'll be the first to admit I love speed. And, no, not the inject into your veins, twitching on edge type of speed, but the sheer joy of passing though space and time at a velocity that we as humans aren't really meant to experience if not for our amazing advancements in machinery.
I don't drive nearly as fast as I used to, and that's saying a lot. Granted I used to drive a little 4 cylinder pickup truck, and man did I love that little ford ranger even if it topped off at 103 though it's speedometer claimed 120. Even if I had to floor it to make it up the first hill on the freeway on my way to school each cold morning without being passed up by everyone else on the freeway. I even managed to get my first speeding ticket, which I'm not proud of since getting caught always ruins the fun, in that little gutless ranger. Ah yes, those were some good times...so you can imagine how disappointed I was to recently, eight years later, get my second speeding ticket in the long history of my driving career. Needless to say, when now my average speed topples around 75 or at least has in the last 6 months. Of course, when the cop paced me I was a good 11 mph faster than that, but I had been driving at 65 for most the week. I'm not saying driving fast is ok, or safe, or good, for most people in fact it is a very bad idea...and I'm not claiming to be above the law or a superb driver who should be allowed to drive recklessly, but I am saying that getting a ticket for going 86 (and luckily being cited at 79 since I didn't try to cry or lie my way out of it...I knew I was going faster than appropriate according to posted signs and I'm not one to deny when I am in the wrong) when my car's speedometer goes well into the later half of the 100's kinda sucks. Granted I've never really had the guts to test it out above 120, and even then it was only for a couple seconds on the deserted highway late at night on my way to Vegas or whatnot, but it's such a tease is it not? I mean with the truck I could only go 103 before it hit it's automatic shut down valve and slowed me to the 90's, a fact again I discovered on a 4 am trip to Vegas back in college, but with my present ride...who knows. Shit, the speedometer boasts 150, and even if, like the truck, it has an automatic shut off about 20 mph less than that...that's still 130. A speed I'd love to experience but am no longer, nor ever was, reckless enough to attempt. Not that I think it'd be dangerous to myself or those around me, I'm not stupid, I wouldn't get close to those speeds if there were other cars around who may make sudden lane changes or whatnot, but because there is no way in hell I'd make it to that speed without getting a ticket. Not at all, not with my luck. I was lucky enough to go the last 8 years with nothing more than a rolling the stop sign and a traffic light ticket.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a very safe driver. As my friends, yes, they might tell you I tend to scare them or drive a little too fast, mostly because they remember my college days, but at the same time they will, for the most part, vouch for my control. I drive fast, and am on the aggressive side (have you ever driven in LA?? Aggressiveness is an absolute must!), but I also enjoy driving, I like the speed, the judging timing and distance when passing cars, the slipping in and out of lanes, the sensation that your're going fast yet are so relaxed, so controlled, so calculated. Did I mention I should have been a race car driver?
So when it comes down to it...why do they make cars that can go 0 to 60 in 5.4, or 3.3, or better yet 1.97!? Seriously, and I don't even drive a car that amazing and I feel cheated. Here I am driving around a beast of american metal and horsepower, a gas guzzling v8 that boasts a 0 to 60 of 5.5 according to sources, and driving home from work at 1:30 am going a steady 80 mph wondering why on earth we can't go the speed that our cars can take us...and what the point of tempting us with such notions of glory is. Good thing I recently purchased pilot lessons, which both excite and scare me. Granted I didn't enroll in an actual pilot school rather purchased the discounted voucher for amateur lessons which probably are the most basic and least exciting yet, but still, perhaps it'll quench my ever present itch to push my car to it's limits...or perhaps I'll just have to enroll in NASCAR school, or a street driving course in which I'm allowed to drive as fast as I please, letting the speed take over and reveling in the glory and power of such a simple thing as 8, or 10, or maybe even 12 cylinders and the ignited gas compressed within them.
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