The Daily Gripe #2 - Slow Motion

Welcome to The Daily Gripe, a new regular feature on Average Joe American.

As I've said many times, I drive quite a few miles for work each day. Half of them in the early morning darkness.

Did you ever notice how driving more miles makes you drive faster? Really. The more mileage you put on a car, the faster you drive, whether it's from over-confidence that you won't get stopped or the desire to complete a long trip as quickly as possible. Most of us do it, and I'm no exception.

My daily commute takes me from town to town, through farm country, over county roads, state roads, U.S. Highways, and an unnamed road or two. The speed limit most of the way is fifty-five. But like Sammy Hagar, I can't drive fifty-five. Not when I can get away with going seventy and trim over twenty minutes off my trip. That's twenty minutes of valuable sleep time.

This morning I was cruising along at roughly sixty-five in a fifty-five speed zone when I came upon someone else who apparently can't drive fifty-five. It looked like forty-five was more their speed. I shifted into the oncoming lane, made a clean pass, and moved back to the right lane. This slow-going person I had just passed must have been concerned that I would get lost in the fog ahead, because he started flashing his high beams at me repeatedly. That must have been his motivation, because I can't think of any other reason (short of being a total idiot) that a person would want to flash his high beams at a car that passed him when he couldn't even maintain the speed limit. A mile or so down the road, the guys concern must have increased, because he repeated his flashing before turning off the main road.

Come on people, how stupid can a person be? Do you think this driver tries especially hard to be annoying? Or could it just come naturally? Flashing his high beams: that really gripes me! But that's probably what he hoped to accomplish.

Joe