September 20, 2011

Dumb Speeders

I drove back to Houston from San Antonio this morning. Well, I left San Antonio this morning, I got to Houston this afternoon. Part of the problem was that I left much later that I had hoped to leave. (Yes, my day job is in Houston) Another factor was great BBQ in Luling:

 But the real issue was that the County Sheriffs, State DPS Troopers, and City Policemen were out in force.

At least from San Antonio to Seguin. Now, let me stipulate here that I never speed. Never, ever do I consciously break the speed limit in my car:

 

 I mean this car:
 

simply does not lend itself to such illegal activity.

So, now that we have that out of the way. I must have been about 30 miles outside of San Antonio, and was using my cruise control (which I seldom do. I don't like giving up that much control when you drive) so I was crawling along at the speed limit (see my stipulation above) of 70 MPH. (I may concede that the margin of error on the speedometer is probably about 2 MPH. So I may have unknowingly have been traveling at about 72 MPH. But I would never do that on purpose)

A car slowly started to pass me. He was pretty much just crawling past me (this is why I don't really like cruise control), so I am guessing that he was going, at the outside 75 MPH. He gets about 1/2 mile ahead of me, and I see that he is coming alongside of a state trooper (DPS here in Texas). I almost shouted to the empty air (well, probably to John Hiatt. But he wasn't paying attention) DON'T DO IT!!!

But he did. He slowly pass the trooper, probably thinking, "I get my 5 MPH over no matter what!" or more likely he was thinking "Doh dee doh, doh dee doh" and was most likely surprised when as soon as he got past the cop, and pulled back into the slow lane, the trooper hit his lights and pulled him over.

I know he was surprised, because it probably took a mile for him to stop.

But I did feel sorry for him.

I was chastised for having schadenfreude when I see people pulled over.

But since I never speed, I can't really feel empathy.

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