By Keith C. Milne
I don’t think too many people would disagree that 2020 was a much harder than usual year. In fact, many would say it was, by far, the worst year of their entire lives. I was in the former camp, but often fear and rage came to visit me anyway. Between the stress related to the fear of dying from COVID-19, along with allowing myself to emotionally become caught up pretty deeply in the political fever that characterized last fall and most of the Trump administration, I started working my stress out on the local roads and the interstate highway on a semi-regular and, eventually, on an almost daily basis.
I am well aware that any genetic potential to live a long life can only be realized by making valid and safe choices along the way while living life. It is common sense, backed by scientific research that not smoking, drinking to excess, riding motorcycles regularly over 100 mph, or playing with guns will help you have a shot at living out your genetic potential. And, it goes without saying that appropriate lifestyle choices do not include driving aggressively, obsessively, or insanely like I was.
For me, it was effortless to get used to 70 mph when the speed limit is 65, and 75 mph came just as easy. At first, 75 really made it seem like I was moving right along, and that I would be at my destination before I knew it. Then came 80 mph. At this speed, I began noticing how I would be passing people more often than not on the interstate. Most folks would see me coming and move over. Effortless to speed along, zipping up the highway and having all these people just bump over into the slow lane so you can just keep right on going. So, 75 to 80 became my new norm. I was a happy driver for quite some time at this level, and it seemed to be pretty much a rinse-and-repeat affair each and everyday on my way to and from work.
Unfortunately, my new found bliss didn’t take long to meet some obstacles. First, not everyone would move over when I would come up fast behind them, even if I flashed my high beams at them as I was approaching. The nerve! I would go right around these “fools.” Then I started moving around them really quickly, running up on them pretty close, then a quick bump into the right lane, gun it hard to move past them, then swerve back over in front of them, sometimes with only inches to spare in order to “punish them for the error of their ways.” Eventually I got to the point where, If anyone challenged me, like trying to pass me on the right, I would race them and go as fast as it took to get them to give up. And, they always did. If they rode up on my bumper while doing 85 mph, I would brake hard suddenly and, just before they would hit my bumper, I would floor it again and leave them in the dust.
I would bump around them in the breakdown lane, and swerve all the way back over into the fast lane while accelerating like a madman leaving them in the dust. Crazy shit!
Keith Milne
Little by little I began upping the ante. I began to see that, even at my age, I still had nerves of steel and enjoyed the adrenaline rush I would get from doing this stuff. By fall of 2020, I began to become shocked at myself at some of the insane stuff that I would do! After a while, I became really acclimated driving this way. I amazed myself sometimes at how automatically and quickly I could execute maneuvers, which only added to the thrill of the moment and my adrenaline rush.
If two different drivers each driving side by side in the fast and slow lanes, refusing to go faster than 65 or 70, and expected me to just sit back there and take it, then I would bump around them in the breakdown lane, and swerve all the way back over into the fast lane while accelerating like a madman leaving them in the dust. Crazy shit! Sometimes, while doing this, it was as if I could feel my mind working overtime processing all the data that was flooding in while keeping track of all the variables of high speed driving around low-speed idiots.
Idiots that I saw, oddly enough, as more dangerous because of their unpredictable behavior. Some people just freak out when they see someone coming up on them quickly and start to switch lanes, then change their minds, maybe doing this several times very quickly leaving no time for corrections to be made at the last second. (Still not registering yet in my mind that the whole thing could be avoided in the first place by me not driving like an asshole!)
When I was inevitably pulled over after months of driving like an enraged maniac, constantly increasing the ante with my super stupid, super risky, behavior, I was hard braking and slowing from 100 down to 70 really fast as I saw the State Trooper come into my field of vision with his radar gun aimed right at me. I was terrified that I was going to be arrested, and I haven’t felt that scared about being pulled over since I was 17 years old.
The state trooper ran my plates and my license and registration, finding nothing. He asked me how long I had been driving in my State. I told him 23 years. He then informed me that he couldn’t find a single thing on me at all. No record of speeding or accidents or criminal behavior. He handed me my license back with a written warning! My good driving record had helped save me from what could have been a very bad ticket or much worse. Just one of the good things that came out of finally being caught doing this stupid and dangerous stuff. It jarred me out of my speeding trance just long enough for me to reassess what I had been doing.
I really don’t truly know why I only received a warning, or why only a warning was enough to make me reassess my behavior and finally make the decision to do something that I knew would be REALLY HARD for me to do—Drive the actual speed limit!—but it was. Hallelujah!
Beginning the very next day I decided to implement a whole new strategy to help me with my new resolution to actually drive the speed limit for a whole month by using my speed control and actually setting it each time I get onto the Interstate for 65 mph., the speed limit here in my state.
The very first thing that I’ve discovered is that NO ONE DRIVES THE SPEED LIMIT ANYMORE, ESPECIALLY ON THE HIGHWAY, and a handful of folks do just the opposite-they drive so slow they are dangerous, but they are the exception.
Driving along in the slow lane of the interstate highway locked in at a paltry 65 MPH when most are driving 75 (average) feels like I’m in a self-driving vehicle. Everyone is coming up on me and passing me, adding to the sense that I’m moving much slower than the rest of the world. It seems effortless to drive this way. And the really funny part is that often when I get off at my exit or drive the half-block to the first light, there are a couple of the cars that passed me like maniacs a short while ago. Ha!
Immediately, I began to notice benefits from my new way of being. I arrive at work not stressed out at all like I used to be, and the same has been true for how I feel upon arriving home at the end of the day. AMAZING, JUST AMAZING.
I love starting and ending my day this way now. I only commute 12 miles, but it’s just enough to ruin my day If I run with the bulls in the fast lane. My new “way” allows me the luxury of being able to relax a lot more than ever, while also eating a daily apple while listening to my favorite music. There is where you’ll find me now, over in the slow lane, locked in at the speed limit, watching the world go by me as my speed control forces all the speeders to move over to go past me. It’s awesome!
“Contrarian driving. That’s what I call it now. Odd that it is “Contrary” to be driving the speed LIMIT. ”
Keith Milne
This new way of being has, at times, inadvertently affected others in a positive way also. Several times in the last couple of months since adopting this new way of being, I have watched as some drivers have come up on me relatively fast, like they expect me to speed up so they don’t have to slow down, then realize that I’m not going to. But, rather than going around or past me, they slow down too, and eventually fall into a proper position behind me an adequate number of car lengths. I have witnessed this now several times, and my new record is getting four other cars to line up behind me doing the speed limit while properly spaced. When I realized it, I smiled as I heard the voice in my head repeating the famous quote by Mahatma Gandhi, “you must be the change you wish to see in the world.”
So now this has become my new norm, new way, new mantra. It is now effortless to drive this way and is taking me in all sorts of new and exciting directions now, like wanting to write more often, simply taking deeper breaths more often, seeing the world as “glass half-full” more often, and living less angry a lot more. I feel better. I think better. I sleep better. I am less anxious overall, and I don’t see others as my enemy automatically like I used to while “doing battle” on the road all the time.
Try it out. Anything that you’re not really a fan of like, say, Facebook, then go “Contrarian” and do the opposite of what the rest of the herd is doing. You might find a whole new way of being for yourself if you do.