Friday, February 03, 2006

I did a bad, bad thing

As I was driving home from my education law class last night, I came upon a familiar situation: The light turned yellow in front of me, and I was going too fast to stop safely before getting to the intersection, but I couldn't get through the light before it turned red. I'm ashamed to say that I was - res gestae statement alert - SPEEDING! (pardon me while I blush shamefully).

Now, usually, when I come to a situation like this, I'll hit my brakes and stop as quickly as I can, though often I end up halfway over the line. This time, for whatever reason, I decided not to follow habit, and instead gassed up and sped through. My car managed to just get into the intersection before the light turned red, and I managed to get through without impeding traffic, so perhaps I can claim victory.

After I get through the intersection, I look in my rear-view to see whether the other traffic's started moving. When I look through, I notice, not six feet from my rear bumper, a large pickup truck that went through the light right behind me. As I was quickly thanking Him for compelling me to run the red light, I saw another large pickup truck merge from my lane into the other lane on the road. Yes, not one, but two tailgating pickup trucks ran a red light after I did. My Ford Escort and I are painfully thankful that I didn't decide to hit the brakes.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Its always important to understand the driving gestalt of the area in which you live. Are you in a neighborhood of brakers, or light-speeders? (Shades of Star Wars...) Situational awareness is good too.

Of course, I might have been tempted to brake, just to piss off the idiots who are tailgating me.

English Professor said...

This could complicate the situation with the cameras that take pictures of red light runners. In this case, would they have snapped you and missed the two behind you? Just caught the one in the middle? Interesting development.

nuje said...

Your story is a lie. Everyone knows that there are not that many pick-ups in Houston.

particleman said...

you're obviously not from houston, steve. real houstonians don't proceed through an intersection until it's red.

also, i agree with nuje.