Here's what I've told my Dad about my sister's most recent driving escapade.
Oklahoma, Where the Wind Comes Sweepin' Down the Plain
On a two-lane stretch of highway, four miles ahead for the eyes to see, a woman alone in her car and her thoughts scans the Oklahoma horizon. Cleaving to its lane, her car charts its course eastbound and down towards home. Noting the speed limit the driver wonders about the last time she and her car really got to fly - like the Oklahoma wind sweepin' down the plain flying.
After quick looks in the rear-view mirror and towards the ever-approaching horizon the driver grants herself an all-clear. It's just her and the highway, the perfect pair. Nestled in the contoured comfort of her tan leather seats, surrounded by the premium sound streaming from ten speakers, she guides the gas pedal toward the floorboard. The engine jumps and re-calibrates as if suddenly awakened from a long slumber. Its power surge firmly presses the driver into her seat and she relaxes as the cruise control sets.
It's a straight-away, this road. There are no hairpin turns, no rolling hills, no signs calling for a sudden stop or shift in direction and, most importantly, no trooper hiding spots. To the casual driver the scenery might seem too static, boring one into an auto-piloted haze. Yet this driver, rapt and revved, takes a series of snapshots of the passing plains. She examines how the side roads seem to lead to nowhere; how the wind pushes and dares to lift the car; how the road has its ever-so-slight inclines and declines; how the driver's vision is completely unfettered.
In this car on this long-stretching piece of highway - the dusty cowboy's Autobahn - the ultimate driving experience occurs.
In a few minutes she has driven several miles and sees a car approaching. From the distance, this car is not a Charger, Impala or Crown Victoria so the pedal remains unmoved. This car can really float, the driver thinks to herself. Were she actually floating in a boat, she'd be traveling at approximately 132 knots. Riding along easily and breezily, she admires her car's efficiency, the way it slices through the wind undeterred; the way the craftsmanship ensures very little wind is heard. The person within the approaching car quickly comes into view and in the split-second before shepasses him, she sees his head rise. Then his body shifts as if to say, "What in the hell?!"
He quickly becomes little more than a shrinking speck in her rear-view mirror. Glancing at the speedometer she chuckles to herself wondering what he must be thinking. If he was a cop it'd be too late for him to turn around now; but, there was something about the way his body shifted. A great driver with solid instincts (and a history), she noted that however slight his movement was it was just sharp and startling enough to make her ease the cruise control lever down. As the car sighed its way back under 100 mph the driver scanned the perimeter.
All clear, she thought to herself as she continued. Upon returning to double-digits she managed to notice a 70 mph speed limit sign so she set her cruise control to 7 mph above that. Her mind turned to other things - the distance still to be traveled, her dog eagerly awaiting her return, her life in general - when the all-too-familiar flicker of blue lights flashed in her rear-view.
Pulling over, she hissed a damn and wondered what the purpose of this stop was going to be because he surely didn't see her going as fast as she was going. There was no way; it was all clear; the only way was if someone she passed happened to have a radio ...
It could've been the man who shifted, she thought, but she wasn't so sure and it wasn't like this officer could prove anything. She gathered her license and registration as the trooper informed her that he'd clocked her at 11 miles over the speed limit. Bemused she realized she had failed to notice the 65 mph sign that came after the 70 mph sign. He gave her the usual speech - asking her what her hurry was and whether she was aware of how fast she was traveling. In return she offered the same banal response that guaranteed she'd still get a ticket.
As she waited for the trooper to finish the transaction in his cruiser, she smiled to herself feeling lucky enough that he hadn't caught her just a few miles earlier. She didn't even want to think about how much a ticket like that would cost, but of course she wondered if they'd have been able to catch her at all. This wouldn't have been the first time she'd outrun some cops, and in this car it'd have made for one hell of a chase.
The trooper returned and handed her the ticket giving his closing blase blase statement about minding the speed limit and the safety of others. She was just about to roll up her window as he tipped his hat when he mentioned that he'd stopped her because she was speeding, but more importantly he had received word that she absolutely should've been stopped from an off-duty colleague. Apparently, a few miles back this off-duty trooper had been passed by a car a lot like the one she was driving and this car was traveling at a very high rate of speed. With a wry smirk, he asked whether she knew anything about that, because, you see, while his colleague didn't have a radar gun he was pretty darn sure she must've been running at least 100 mph. She listened intently and, nodding nonchalantly, looked up at him with a wry grin of her own.
"No sir," she said. "Not even close."