As for this report's plan, I didn't have to think too hard as to what I wanted to change. I assume that probably half of the class will be doing this topic based on its commonalty, and frequent occurrence. Everyone does it at one point in their
driving career, whether it be conscious or unconsciousness. Yes, my paper is devoted to the ever popular subject of speeding, and how I can get rid of my EXCESSIVE speeding. Excessive speeding for me is not simply going five to ten miles per hour over the posted speed limit. I'm talking about going twenty to twenty--five miles over the posted speed limit.
The reasons for me wanting to "makeover" this aspect of my driving are four obvious non-arguemental lligitable reasons. First, speeding is generally very dangerous, especially under certain conditions. An example would be night. During this time, vision is very limited and the increase in speed only decreases distance sight, which in turn slows reaction time. Another hazardous condition would be rain; the roads are very slippery when wet, and speeding on wet roads lead to traction loss. a result of this is called hydroplaning, or literally an uncontrollable "float" on the thin layer of water that coats the road. Second, speeding is very law enforcement arousing and can result in a costly ticket, with an increase in insurance rates. Speeding attracts attention to yourself, especially is you are in a highly policed area where lazer guns are common. This includes certain parts of the freeway, and many residential areas. Third, speeding only increases wear and tear on your car, not to mention the higher frequency of gas stops. Fourth, Speeding won't get you to your destination as fast as you want to get there, unless you are driving at very early hours in the morning or have a blue or red light bar on your vehicle's roof. Remember, this is Hawaii you are bound to come to a traffic light or traffic congestion which defeats the purpose for speeding in the first place. Don't be surprised when all the other cars you passed catch up with you at either/or situations.
As for myself, I strongly feel that this is something I have to make over. I feel that if I can accomplish this makeover, it will make me an all around better person. Like drugs or anything else, I see speed as an addiction; yet I don't want necessarily more of it, I just want to be able to curb my "need for speed." I also know it is easier said than done, because of the fact that I even "like " to speed. Going 25 in a 25 miles per hour zone just isn't me.
As far as my history of speeding goes, it has got to be a result of my young and stupid days, when racing on the freeway was my specialty. It would usually be late at night, after "cruising" in town and going home, yet it could have been other times such has going to town in traffic. Sometimes it was just me, other times it was with my circle of friends. We all drove automobiles that were souped up, ready to take on anyone that was willing to race us. My vehicle was a 1987 Buick Regal Grand National with various alterations done to my engine, and a free flow exhaust without the catalytic converter on it. It was black, and many mistaked it for a cop car, because a lot of cops drove this specific type of car. sI had the second fastest car in my group, next to my friend's highly modified mustang. I never got to clock it on the track, though, so I didn't really know its full potential.
Believe it or not but we took on a lot of cars that were compatibly fast as ours, such as 300ZX's, IROC-Z's, eagle talons, and BMW's. I even raced a Ferrari once ( I think it was a 308), and kept up with it pretty well. Our theory was this: speed and power doesn't mean nothing in especially heavy traffic, it depends on the driver, and what lane he chooses that flows the most consistently. It did help to have a car that had power though, especially if you're on a clear freeway. If this was the case, we'd resort to racing cars that we liked having fun with, such as Hondas, Nissans, VW's, and so forth.
The basics of racing on the freeway is this: flickering the hazard lights or rear lights to someone is to "call them out." In other words, if someone passed me and did this, I would usually responding by increasing my speed to catch up with them, or flicker my highlights to the car. There in turn a race would evolve, yet there was no prize except increased pride, and another story to share with your friends (which I will share with you in the next paragraph.) That wasn't the only way to instigate a race though. It could also be through getting cut off or being tailgated, to catch the person up and do the same back to them, or flick them off. Another way to provoke a race was if someone blew by you, very quickly. It was adrenaline pumping, and you never knew what to expect. It was different everytime-- same race, but with different tactics and strategies, competitors, and different conditions. Freeway racing takes more than just putting the "pedal to the metal." You had to mentally map out in your mind what you were going to do, and how you would stay ahead of your competitor. You also had to be aware of cops, even be able to recognize them if they were off duty. Usually looking for cars like ours, with the antenna on the back, or the police sticker. Keep in mind that they do have radios in their car, and can still call you in! After a while, you knew which cars raced you, how fast or slow they were, and their driving styles. Occasionally we'd make friends with some of them, and a mutual respect formed.
There was also a set of unwritten rules or basic "freeway racing etiquette" that my friends and I followed. The first rule was to never, ever race with a date or girlfriend in the car. The second was to never race anyone with children in the car, even if they did want to race. We just though that this was plain outright stupid, and that person shouldn't even have children in the first place. One must wonder what else do they do with their children if they are willing to race with them inside the car! The last rule deals with common sense-- if you are not confident with your car, then don't race it! This means that if you think your car isn't capable of handling high speeds or something is wrong with it ( such as balding tires), them you shouldn't push your luck.
As far as my race stories go, I have two that I recall most vividly. The first one deals with a close call that I had on the Pearl City off ramp. The roads were wet that night, and I was racing a Camaro that had just cut me off, and pissed me off. I gradually pulled away from him, and had a long head lead. As I was coming to my off ramp, I suddenly found myself in an uncontrollable spin! Everything thing was happening so fast, and all I could do was pray. Lucky for me I came out of it unscathed, and my car wasn't damaged also! I found myself facing head on towards the traffic, and got out of the way as soon as I could.
The second story dealt with another coming home incident. It didn't deal with any close calls as far as accidents though, just one with the police. As my friends and I were coming back from town, we were racing each other. We weren't gong extremely fast though, approximately eighty to eighty-five miles per hour. as we passed the Likelike cutoff, there were three cop cars on the side possibly lazering us. It was too late to slow down! Fortunately for me, the airport cutoff wasn't too far away so I took it with some of my friends following me. We made the right and drove around Kalihi, attempting to hide in the back streets. That as the closest call I ever had as far as police goes. I guess I was just lucky.
I wouldn't endorse this kind of behavior, yet the goal of explaining all this is to let the reader understand where I'm coming from, as far as my speeding goes. Most people would deny the fact that this type of thing is happening, yet it still goes on all the time, everytime. I know that racing on the freeway is probably the dumbest thing to do in the world, yet believe me, many more people engage in this type of behavior than you would imagine. It's also not the stereotypical reckless young kid that I was also. I've raced against many types of people-- old and young men, women, etc.. It's also not until I passed them by that I see who is driving, so it's not like I called out women either! However, they do put up a good race. Who ever said women were terrible drivers?
Concerning my reducing speeding plan, I intend to do whatever it takes to accomplish this. I have set a reasonable goal for myself, being at the most I will go five to seven miles over, nothing more. It also doesn't apply only to certain places-- I intend to abide by my rule everywhere! In fifty five and twenty five miles per hour zones. I feel that this is goal is obtainable, because it's realistic, and not to difficult to follow. If I were to say the speed limit, then that would be another story. I would question myself!
I do expect some difficulty though, such as when the flow of traffic is faster than my five to seven mile per hour range. I know that I will start to feel obligated to not slow down traffic, and will be tempted to go faster and with the flow. There may also be times when someone is tailgating me, and I feel another obligation to speed up. However, I must keep in mind that I am trying to accomplish something and must be true to myself!
The theory behind my plan is simple: slowing down equals a decrease in speeding tickets plus a decrease in danger. I assume that these are pretty valid reasons for sticking to this plan.
I started my self observation on a weekly basis whereever I went, day and night. I would then write my experiences down, from the highest to least significant. Most of the time I was able to keep to my plans, yet temptation came strongly just as I had predicted in the first couple of days into my observations. It was on the freeway, with someone tailgating me. It's hard not to take your eyes off your rear view mirror when someone is following you so closely! Despite this, I stuck with it, and stayed at sixty to sixty two in a fifty five miles per hour zone.
I was feeling pretty good about myself for keeping with this plan. I was more worried about going over the speed limit I had put on myself rather than get pissed off at the tailgater.
As I got into the plan a little more, I found it easier to stick with it. I was more or less worried about myself than what other people were thinking about me. My main concern was avoiding those dreadful feelings of "lacunae," which I did not want to deal with. If there has ever been something that I wanted to accomplish in my life so bad, it's got to be this! It may be a small goal to some, but to me it's pretty important. You could say that it would be a personal victory for myself, and that accomplishment would mean everything to me. This plan is just as important to me to accomplish as it is for some people to quit smoking, or drinking. As I stated before, speed is an addiction, and is quite difficult to quit in a "cold turkey" method! It's a slow and long process of taking one day at a time, one driving experience at a time.
What was getting on my nerves, though, was the frequency in tailgating. It seemed to be increasing, even though I stayed out of the fast lanes. It didn't occur strictly on the freeway, though. Even in residential areas, people were tailgating me. Could it be because of the limitations in choices of lanes? I think so. Most residential areas have two way lanes, and a lot doesn't even have lanes-- only roads. I'm not too sure if I could handle all this tailgating any longer!
One aspect that I found useful concerning going the speed limit (or little bit over) was the ability to quickly reach the posted speed limit when cops were around. You didn't have to make that obvious "plunge" that most people do when coming across a cop who is lazering on the side. I came across this situation a couple of times, and was grateful that I was going as slow as I was. I'm pretty sure that if I was going my usual speed, I would've got caught!
Sometimes I see similarities between this plan and the experiment I had tried for the earlier paper. The only exception is, this plan isn't just for three days-- it's forever! But to be truthful, I don't know how much longer I can stand tolerating the things I do when I am with the plan; the tailgating, losing the "pride" (discussed in the earlier paper), and so forth. That's what it comes down to-- my level of toleration for all these reasons why I shouldn't have to do this!
The inevitable has finally come-- I broke my plan today, and speeded. There was just too much pressure to conform to something I knew I wasn't. I feel like a failure, yet on the other hand I can't say that I never tried, or didn't put in my one hundred percent which I honestly did. I think I would have succeeded if I didn't have that strong sense of obligation, which played the main part of my failure. I was confident in the beginning, yet that confidence seemed to decrease as my impatience grew.
My assessment is that maybe I should have started off with goals more reasonable to my level than the goals I WANTED to accomplish. Instead of trying to cut down my speed to five to ten miles over the speed limit, I should've tried twenty to fifteen, fifteen to ten, and progressively slower. I think that I would've had a better chance of succeeding this way, instead of going the "cold turkey" route.
All in all, I can't say that I didn't learn anything from this experience. If anything slightly positive came out of this, it has got to be the fact that I know now to recognize my limitations to attaining certain goals. I also know not to make promises to myself that I might have difficulty with, or can't keep. Yet it's hard to have great visions when you know you might not be able to attain them.
