What Speed Limit?

Speed limit 20. At least that’s what the sign said. At that speed, you could supposedly make it all the way through town without ever hitting a red light. I’m not really sure since my friend and I were both hitting 65mph when we saw the cop.

I suppose I should start at the beginning of this story. It all began with a simple question. One day at school, our teacher asked whose car was faster, my Chevrolet Impala, or my friend’s Mercury Montego - and we didn’t know. Neither car was exactly a hotrod, but with a 4-barrel carburetor, an 8-cylinder engine, and a lead foot, both cars would move -and fast! We’d had the cars for quite a while, but had never raced them. Sure, we’d driven down a few deserted country roads and knew the cars were pretty evenly matched but there had been no actual race to see who was the fastest. Until that day. Odd for teenagers, I know. The teacher was surprised as well.

Why we picked the downtown section of road for our race, I don’t know. Maybe because at sixteen it sounded like a good idea? We did have a freeway we could have used but I guess that would have made too much sense. So, instead we chose Main Street - in the middle of the day.

Starting at one end of town, there we sat, side by side, at the light. When the light changed to green, we both floored the gas pedal, leaving two nice sets of rubber tracks in the road. (And announcing to the world, or at least the people of the small town, what we were up to). We’d covered less than five short blocks when we saw the cop turn onto the street, coming toward us.

I think the police officer was more surprised to see us than we were him. It took him several seconds to make a u-turn and come after us. Those several seconds were about three seconds longer than it took us to disappear. Literally. At the light, where the cop had suddenly appeared, my friend turned right and I made a left. And then we were gone. We never saw which way the cop turned but it didn’t matter. By the time he got back to the intersection, we’d both made several more turns and then headed for a dirt road outside of town. And just in case anyone is wondering, one of the most satisfying feelings in the world for a sixteen-year-old is to successfully outrun a cop!

The only problem was, we never did find out whose car was fastest, not that day or any other. But the race wasn’t a total waste. I’ve always tried to learn something from my experiences, even if it’s not what I expected to learn. This day was no exception: That bit about driving 20 mph and hitting all green lights? Well, it works at 65 too!

Bruce A. Borders is the author of more than a dozen books. Over My Dead Body, The Journey, and Miscarriage Of Justice, and other titles, are available as ebooks on Apple I-Pad®, Amazon Kindle®, Barnes & Noble Nook® and Sony Reader®, Kobo, Diesel Books, and Smashwords. His books are also available in print at most online retailers or at www.bruceabordersbooks.weebly.com. The popular Wynn Garrett Series Books are now available on Barnes And Noble® at http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/?series_id=867526 See Bruce’s Smashwords Profile at www.smashwords.com/profile/view/BruceABorders #MiscarriageOfJustice #BruceABorders