Weekday Racers

Anyone who is familiar with the roads in Northern Virginia knows all to well how rare it is to find I-66 relatively clear of traffic. Typically Mondays and Fridays are days when the traffic in general is lighter than the rest of the week. The main reason behind this is the fact that many government workers have their compressed day off on either Monday or Friday and are working from home on those days. In any case, for those of us who contend with traffic on those roads on a daily basis it is a wonderful respite. However, one must be careful while driving under these conditions.

Last evening was one of those days where the road was relatively clear and as I was making my way down towards Tysons I was able to cruise along at a steady clip. Although the posted speed limit is about 55 MPH, most cars, even those in the 'slow' right lane were doing at least 65. I continued on at a clip in the lane second from the left. I generally avoid the left most lane because these are the lanes closest to the spots where police lie in wait for an unsuspecting speeder. Driving a Boxster makes me an obvious target for such attention so I generally avoid drawing any to myself.

As I was moving down the road in a pack I could see about four or five cars coming down the left lane from behind me going at least 80. Seeing as how I was in the second from left lane I wasn't too worried. As the blew by me and went on ahead, I noticed a natural phenomena that tends to occur when you have long stretches of road with seemingly nothing stopping you. That phenomena would be the "Oops! Cops! Slow Down! Merge Right!" Phenomena. Almost like a muscle reaction, these cars all seemed to see a cop hiding on the left shoulder at almost the same spot at the same time. From way behind them their brake lights seemed to come on intensely and without warning they dove over to the right lane as if to feign that they were following the speed limit.

Now the cops are not stupid. I mean after all, they probably do the same things when they're dressed in their civvies and are driving along the highway. I just find it amusing that these drivers all have the same reaction and tend to believe that the cops won't realize that they've just been speeding. Typically the cops are sitting in spots where they are not readily seen but they've got clear line of site with their radar guns. They rarely advertise these little hidey-holes. Chances are that if you were speeding, he's probably got your number anyways. What to do? Diving to the right in desperation could possibly lead to an accident. My advice? If you're going to get pulled over, get pulled over for something worthwhile. Keep on that gas pedal and let the speeds go where they may!