Need for Speed

A few days ago, I was driving to my fitness class from work. I usually take the ST expressway. Though it is crowded during rush hour, it still is the fastest route to my class from work. The speed limit is 45 miles per hour (mph) on ST. Usually though, even when the traffic is heavy, as long as it is free-flowing, most drivers do at least 55mph. So, that evening, I was cruising along at between 55-60 miles per hour behind equally charged cars when I noticed a black and white car on the lane to the right out of the corner of my eye. A quick glance over my right shoulder confirmed it - yup, it was a cop car!

Immediately, I slowed down. Within seconds, my speedometer was showing a staid 45mph. I tried to maintain an innocent look on my face as I continued my law-abiding act. Soon, though, my other instincts took charge and my speed climbed to 50mph. Still, not bad, I told myself. Then I noticed something strange. I was at the tail-end of a huge group of cars ahead of me. But behind me, except for one lone car, for at least 200 feet, there were no other cars. But after that, again, there was a huge bunch of cars! What the heck!@#$! I had been surrounded by cars just a few minutes ago.

Then it struck me. The drivers of the huge bunch of cars behind me were all maintaining 45mph, doing the innocent law-abiding citizens act after noticing the cop car! I started chuckling to myself as I glanced at the rear-view mirror again. And my heart shot into my mouth and my stomach dropped. The lone car behind mine was the cop car! Oh my gosh! Don't tell me doing 50mph in a 45mph zone merited a ticket.

Thankfully, before my over-active imagination could give me a full-fledged heart-attack, the cop car sped right by me. I watched, wondering which poor soul ahead of me the cop was going to catch. But to my surprise, the cop car just zoomed away, even faster than the cars ahead of me. I was just absorbing this drama when I realized that something had changed. All the law-abiding citizens who had hitherto been doing 45mph behind me had started zooming again the moment the cop car went past them. And the 200 ft behind me which had been empty only a few moments earlier was now once again chock-full of cars.

LOL! So much for following the law!

Ah, while I am at it, here is another story from the road. So the other morning, on my way to work from home, I was zooming along at the speed-limit when I saw the green light at an intersection. I crossed the intersection - only to realize that, due to some construction work, the right-most of the three lanes beyond the intersection had been blocked. The traffic lights at the next intersection was on red. Resultantly, the other two lanes were jam-packed, all the way upto the end of the lanes on that side. As I was already midway across the intersection I couldn't back up and so just went forward. I inched as close as possible to the car in front of me in the middle lane. Even so, the rear end of my car was sticking out just a little into the intersection. Immediately, I started panicking and started imagining all sorts of worst-case scenarios (all of which ended in me being rear-ended by some car) when the cross traffic started.

When I checked the rear-view mirror again, to my relief, I noticed that a SUV driven by a lady had pulled up behind my car. If my car was sticking a bit into the intersection, her SUV was practically blocking one of the lanes for the cross traffic. I began to feel sorry for that driver - if I had panicked so much, how much more nervous she would be feeling!

Then, even as I watched her in the rear-view mirror, the lady calmly reached across the seat, pulled out a mascara and started applying it to her lashes! She did not stop even when the cross traffic started and the vehicles in that direction swerved to miss hitting her SUV. Talk about cool! Talk about contrasts!

I tell you - drivers here never cease to amaze me.