Thursday, September 08, 2005

Zippy

So yesterday I was driving around in Garland, and I noticed this Volvo behind me, coming up really fast, zipping around people, changing lanes all strategically, in a big hurry. Finally she gets blocked behind me and a slow car in the next lane, and she is really annoyed trying to get around us. I needed to get over, so she got past me, sped up, and the light turned red. HA HA! So now she's next to me at the red light, still annoyed, and I see it is a girl right outta Long Island (no offense) with the long flowy dark hair and long fingernails, probably chewing gum, kinda looked like Janis from the Friends show. So the light turns green and she hauls a** to zip around me and do you know where she is going that she has to be in such a hurry? WAL-MART! I should have followed her in there to see what urgent purchase was worth risking the lives of other drivers, but I just kept on going.

I heard a commercial on the radio the other day that made me really mad for a thing you can buy for your car that makes you "invisible to police radar." They guarantee you won't get a ticket, or they'll pay for it. Then they say really fast and more quietly, "of course we don't condone reckless driving BUT
buy our product so you can be above the law and go as fast as you want!"
Dangit.

I don't like driving around the streets with Zippy and Speedy. Be careful out there.

3 comments:

K. said...

This morning on my way to work I had a revelation: commuting is just like a video game. So then I started to invent a Road Rally type game called Commuter.

First you would pick the city (Houston, LA, Dallas, etc), the driving conditions (morning, night, rain, etc), and your car (giant SUV, beater, VW bug, etc). The goal would be to get to work in minimal time with as little damage to self as possible. Along the way there would be various road hazards such as:

1. cars cutting you off
2. stupid drivers (cell phone talkers, makeup appliers, etc)
3. accidents
4. construction delays
5. debris falling off of dump trucks
6. the fuzz
7. old men with hats going 35 mph
8. the occasional road rage

Strategy would weigh in for selecting alternate routes based on the traffic report on the radio. And along the way you would pick up bonus points (cups of coffee) for being a courteous and safe driver.

-K.

Tara said...

Yes! You should invent this game and sell it to driver's ed programs!

Gye Greene said...

There's a professor Gary Marx (homepage at http://web.mit.edu/gtmarx/www/garyhome.html ) that currently studies surveillance and technology. One of his points is that there's an ''arms race'' between spying technology and privacy technology. Radar guns vs. anti-radar guns is a good example of this.

Depending on the wording of the ''radar gun proofing'' product: does that mean it doesn't work on infrared-based speed guns? ;)


--GG