It ticks me off. I feel like such a sap, obeying traffic rules, making all my stops. I royally hate feeling like a sap!
The vast majority of people barely stop at all, or blatantly roll right through stop signs! Several times, as a pedestrian, I end up yelling at cars that roll through stop signs as I’m walking across the road!
At least if the cops were enforcing the rules, I’d feel like obeying them, pays-off. Seeing cops parked at intersections waiting to catch the idiots who ignore stop signs would be instant reward; positive reinforcement and motivation to keep being a “goody two shoes”.
For the last several months, there’s been construction on the highway near my home. The signs warn ominously of “doubled fines in construction zones”. The speed limit through the construction zone is posted at 70 kilometres an hour. I go 80. I feel like a grinding-the-gears granny as people routinely fly past me! I curse them for ignoring the speed limit and I curse myself for sappily obeying it. It’s not a pleasant drive.
Why bother obeying the rules, I grumble, if no one is going to enforce them? Sure, I don’t want to hit a worker, or smash into a dump truck as it unexpectedly pulls into or out of a construction area. Most times I drive through there, I see no one working. I drive through there at midnight, or on weekends. I haven’t seen one patrol car monitoring traffic there and I’m constantly grappling with the temptation to go faster.
Last night, after midnight, coming home from work, I once again slowed down to 80 when I hit the construction zone. Sap mobile in the house. The car behind me slowed down as well. We puttered along for a couple of kilometres and then the car behind me pulled out and passed me. It was a Surete du Quebec cruiser!
As the police car continued past, I cheered myself for being a sap and would like to believe that if I’d sped up, I would have received a slobberingly juicy ticket, complete with doubled fines! I’m hoping last night’s incident will deter me from the temptation to speed through the construction zone which, the signs say, will be in place until August 2012.
I know myself. I'm a sad excuse for self-control and by the weekend, I will have dismissed last night’s encounter as a “whale tail”, a fluke!
Drat. I see a long, curse-crammed year of driving ahead.
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