Rantings After a Road Trip

Jo Lynn and I just returned from a 2850-mile road trip to the Colorado Rocky Mountains. I love mountains, from Pinnacle Mountain in Little Rock to Turkey Mountain in Tulsa; from the Boston and Ouachita Mountains in Arkansas to the Appalachians to the Rockies to the Sierras. And when I leave, it’s always with a touch of grief that I watch in my rear-view mirror as they sink below the horizon.

It was a great trip: an escape from the oppressive heat and humidity in Arkansas. We drove through Rocky Mountain National Park, past the highest point on Trail Ridge Road (elevation 12,059 feet according to our GPS).

Columbine Lake ~ Arapaho National Forest (My Photo)

I hiked from the trail head (elevation 10,095 feet) to Columbine Like, sitting beautifully in a glacial cirque at 11,060 feet above sea level. The air was crisp and cool and dry; and thinner than the air in Arkansas.

It was a tranquil time of peaceful appreciation of God’s creation.

But then we had to come home. Home, of course, is not the issue. To channel the late Joan Rivers, “Can we talk?”

Speed limits are a joke. Virtually everybody ignores them: most drivers (and, yes, that includes me) and the police officers charged with enforcing them. It’s universal knowledge that there are two speed limits: the posted one, and the enforced one. On Interstates and major highways, the latter is generally 8 – 12 mph faster than the former, depending upon the traffic conditions, road conditions, the weather, and the current mood of the enforcing officer.

Inconsistency of enforcement is my primary gripe. We’ve all driven through radar at 80 mph and been ignored. On the other hand, my last traffic citation (in 1969) was for speeding. I was driving 58 mph in a 55-mph zone. Decades later, my nephew was cited for impeding traffic. He was driving 58 mph in a 55-mph zone. Inconsistency! It’s difficult—it’s impossible—to know what to expect from other drivers, as well as from those who are charged with enforcing the traffic. Still, we all think we know what we can “get away with”.

I generally set my cruise control around 5 mph over the posted speed limit. By actual count over several decades (I’m a statistics nerd), when I set my cruise at 75 in a 70-mph zone, I’ll be passed by 22 vehicles for every vehicle I pass. That puts me in the slowest 5% of vehicles on the road—when exceeding the posted speed limit—breaking the law!

When the posted speed limit is 55, and I set my cruise at 60, I’ll be passed by 9 vehicles for every vehicle I pass. That puts me in the slowest 12% of traffic.

A rule of thumb offered publicly and frequently by law enforcement representatives is to “go with the flow” in traffic. But, which flow? On Interstate highways the flow in the right lane is usually slower than the posted speed limit, while the flow in the left lane may well exceed it by 15 mph—or more! How often have you been trapped in the right lane behind a vehicle driving 68 mph, and had to wait while a line of cars in the left lane blast your doors off at 85 mph?

And the timing! You’re in the right lane as you’re supposed to be, approaching a slower vehicle, and in your rear-view mirror you see the rabid race driver wannabe bearing down on you. You try to judge; you have to decide: is there enough time to pass the vehicle ahead without impeded the driver bearing down behind? Do I speed up? Do I simply touch my brakes, disengage the cruise and wait for Dale Jr. to pass ? Or, do I change lanes to pass and let the speedster behind me deal with it?

An apparent sense of entitlement is assumed by many drivers. Yesterday on I-40 I was completing a pass of an 18-wheeler when a pickup roared up behind and tailgated within five feet of my rear bumper! The vehicle had been about a half-mile behind me when I began the pass, and there was no other traffic on the road at that point. It’s not an unusual experience. Am I obligated to speed up to get out of his way (which I did in this case)? Is he entitled to travel at 85 mph while everyone steps aside and bows as he passes?

To some degree I don’t think the mph is the issue. The issue is “Get out of my way!!!” I know frustration runs rampant on the highways. I get more frustrated than some. The extreme, of course, is road rage. I certainly don’t want to be the source of frustration, because frustration leads to traffic mishaps. Frustrated drivers become aggressive and dangerous. So I must choose: do I accept the frustration and deal with it; or do I forget that driving is a team activity that requires coordination and cooperation, and simply do what I want to do and to heck with the rest of those sharing the road? The latter is the choice of too many drivers. 

There’s nothing that ruins the tranquility of a mountain vacation quite like having to share the trip home with entitled wannabe road racers on the verge of road rage.

Like I said, speed limits are a joke.

Anyway, that’s my whine for the day. Would somebody please pass the cheese.

That’s the way it looks through the Flawed Glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim