- Really?
I have an 85-year-old friend who prides herself on always going at least five miles over the posted speed limit – usually quite a bit more than that if she thinks she can get away with it. I find that a bit scary. It’s not that she is a reckless driver or even that she ever gets a ticket. But ignoring the speed limit – well, not really ignoring it; more like using it as a base line – is a matter of principal for her.
We’ve talked about it more than once and she gives me a very hard time about my “slow” driving.
“I go the speed limit,” I tell her.
“I’ll bet you slow down to whatever is posted on the curves, too,” she needles.
“If I think it’s safer,” I say. And she gives me a pitying glance…
Usually these discussions take place during our Friday night gatherings here in Oysterville. I am almost always a minority of one. That doesn’t surprise me. I’m a minority of one on the road, too. Other cars pass me constantly and, on the few occasions that I see one of them pulled over by a cop a few miles ahead, I try to keep my finger to myself.
It’s mostly a matter of black and white for me. Right or wrong. There really isn’t any gray. If it’s the law, then I think I should follow it. My friends say “it’s the schoolteacher” in me. Maybe so. Or maybe it’s just the nagging thought of the tax money we spend getting laws passed, getting signs painted, having roads patrolled and… for what?
Sometimes I wonder where entitlement stops. If so many folks think it’s okay to break the speed limit, how about littering? Or shoplifting? Or income tax fraud? Or… is it just a matter of how likely we are to be caught?
Is it a matter of black and white or is there a gray area? Are there lines we shouldn’t cross or do we all get to break the laws of our choice? What to do? What to do? At the very real risk of being called a goody-two-shoes in my own living room, I’m sticking to the speed limits as posted…
Tell your friend that the speed limit signs are not a suggestion (except those yellow ones). Tickets are pretty steep, but as long as she doesn’t go over five miles more than the posted speed she probably won’t get a ticket. Tickets are getting expensive. Early one morning I was flying along back roads on my way to the beach and was stopped by a Mason County deputy. I must have reminded him of his mother because he let me go with a warning and now I drive like the little old lady I’ve officilaly become!