I am not a brave driver. I've had a few accidents before that happened due to basic mistakes on my part, so I don't often take many risks. That said I drive a standard car, and secretly, deep down, it makes me feel a little bit bad-ass. Now, I don't do much to encourage this feeling of bad-assery. I drive at a reasonable speed, I take corners carefully, and I certainly do NOT do doughnuts or burn rubber or drag race. But when I drive to work I have a brief moment where I feel like a professional stunt driver.
The whole thing happens when I'm getting onto the bridge out of my suburb. There's a highway leading up to it, and immediately after my on-ramp is an off-ramp into a shopping area. Each time I drive I turn onto my on-ramp and start to speed up. I shift from 2nd to 3rd, from 3rd to 4th, from 4th to 5th, gaining more and more speed as I approach the highway. I've got one hand on my steering wheel, one hand on my shifter, and music blaring from my radio. Sometimes I even have aviators on. The on-ramp ends and its time for me to merge. I pick a spot between two cars and go for it. With a flick of my fingers I put on my turn signal and smoothly glide into the lane beside me. As I'm starting this manoeuvre, the cars that I've picked also put on their turn signals and change into my lane. It's like a graceful dance performed at 80 kilometers an hour. As soon as we swap places we go our separate ways, without looking back.
This happens to me every time I go over this bridge. And as much as it's a simple, everyday manoeuvre, I come out of it feeling like a rock star. At least, for a few seconds.
Bahaha you have no idea how badly I can relate to this!
ReplyDeleteI love feeling all gasoline-conscious too, so I often keep constant speeds and take out the gear and just let it glide all over the city, then if it loses power I skip a few gears to just give it a gentle push to keep it going.
I feel totally badass being environment-aware.