When I got my first car I bustled myself off to the local insurance agent and plunked down half of my yearly salary — all $300 of it — to make it legal.
As I sat in his office the grandfatherly figure handed me all manner of pamphlets explaining just how dangerous drivers of my ilk were: young, inexperienced, not to mention that they let their boyfriends get behind the wheel. He didn’t even utter the word /alcohol; /he didn’t have/ /to, it was the elephant in the room with us sitting next to the Don’t Drink and Drive poster.
Instead, he peered over his spectacles at me and asked the BIG question?
“Have you ever gotten a speeding ticket?”
“No,” I answered briskly, feigning surprise.
“Well, you’re lucky.”
Actually, I didn’t consider it luck. I considered it simple logic: “I don’t speed, so why would I get a ticket?”
Of course we think of speeders as those people of questionable intelligence who infuriate us as they pass on the highway in a thunderous blur complete with the sound effects of screeching tires and worn out mufflers. Speeders are not the folks who undoubtedly infuriate the people behind them by driving just a few ticks below the limit as a general rule.
And yet, it’s people in the later category who seem to make up the bulk of the documented speeding population. I count myself among them.
Yup, we are the ones who drive 40-miles-an hour regardless of where we are. Solitary country road where speed limit is 50, we drive 40 mph; highway in the rain, 40 mph; city, speed limit 30, oops … 40 mph.
Flashing lights, screaming siren and 40 heart attacks later I’ve pulled off to the shoulder and am fumbling through my bag for my license and registration. With my heart beating rapidly from somewhere in the center of my throat, my mind was a blur with decisions I couldn’t make. Should I turn the car off or leave it running? I should turn the stereo off. … I need to relax. Perhaps I should try yoga. … Wait. Where is that registration?
The first pass with just a “warning” is always a miraculous occasion. You analyze every aspect of the event and try to pinpoint what it was that got you off the hook. Once it happens a second and third time, you are left to wonder when luck will actually run out. I eventually began to anticipate the ticket the way others might unconsciously look forward to that first dent on a new car.
At 8 a.m. one Sunday morning during my eight-month of pregnancy I was offered another chance to even out the cosmic disparity — I was stopped driving 40 in a 30 mph area on my way to the yoga class that I vowed I’d take at that very first siren.
The officer poked his head into the car, took a look at me and immediately asked if there were any medical emergency that would warrent my going above the posted limit.
I just started laughing: “No, officer, I have no good reason at all for speeding.”
I didn’t let him in on the joke — I had been rushing to yoga so I could relax.
Oddly enough, despite my unusual display of mirth at the thought of finally getting the ticket I so deserved, he let me go without a sobriety test and with a just warning.
Perhaps yoga works for tickets, too.
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