I have been driving the speed limit now for almost a year.
I am the only person in the United States who does this and let me tell you it’s a lonely life on the road.
Here are the advantages of driving the posted limits on our nation’s highways.
I see stuff.
Some of my daily drive is on country roads. I see nature’s beauty in all its glory and I can really examine it. Last night there must have been 100 Canadian geese on a small pond that I inspected on my slow drive home. I have seen fox and mink recently along with a stately heron standing on one leg.
I also see things for sale. Lately loads of Big SUV’s parked by the side of the road, owners no doubt hoping to dump the Gas guzzlers.
Which brings me to my next advantage. I really save gas at slower speeds. In this day of nearly $ 3 a gallon gas you would think that would be some incentive. Judging by the rest of the country whizzing by me, no.
Another positive is state of mind. Instead of arriving at my destination breathing like a track star and with hands sweaty and in pain from a death grip on the steering wheel I arrive relaxed.
This slower speed travel also lends itself to thinking. I do some of my best cogitating and reflection time at 55 on the interstate when the left hand lane screams by at 75 or more.
At legal speed limits I see police enforcement vehicles and don’t hit the brakes and my heart rate stays normal.
The big advantage is risk reduction. My slow speed allows me to see and to anticipate the possibility that the traffic ahead of me will turn into twisted piles of metal, flesh and blood.
There are some disadvantages to slow poke travel. I have to leave earlier for my appointments. Oh well.
The rest of the traveling world seems pissed off at me. They ride my bumper, beep the horns and throw me colorful gestures.
I am getting to the point where I don’t take it personally. I pity them instead because they know not the peace of slow motion motoring.
Try as I might I can’t come up with anything else negative.
I do spend a little more time in the car than I used to. But it gives me more time to listen to my favorite radio station.
And how can that be a bad thing?
But then again I could be wrong.
