Is This You? Power in Driving

I love to drive. I am not an aggressive driver. I am a passive driver; I like to pass cars and trucks on the highways and byways that I travel. Of course, I live in the rural part of the world so passing is done on long straight stretches where you can see for at least three miles. That is my rule; three miles and let ‘er rip around the truck pulling triples. But! Yes, a but passing but. You have to know exactly how to pass a cow hauler. It will not take but one time to learn that you do not pass trailers full of cows on any part of a curve or turn, no matter how far ahead you can see. Splat!

Driving can give off some unique feelings. Euphoria is one. Recently I was in Reno, Nevada driving down a major street with stop lights on every corner. The street is Kietzke Lane. I have driven on that road for all the 55 years I have been a driver. And ridden on it for the blabbity blabbity years before that. I am telling you; Reno has more stoplights than there are people in the entire county where I live. I know that if I hit one green light on Kietzke Lane, and if I travel at the posted speed limit, I can hit every green light from 2nd street to North Virginia Street. There are some really big intersections on that road. So, hitting the green light? Well, that is really a great feat of driving. The power one feels hitting a line of green lights is only surpassed by this; That feeling when you see all the green lights staring at you as you come up to and go through a HUGE intersection. Without even thinking you will have to tap your brakes. Without a hint of stopping you glide through while cars at every other lane are stopped. Waiting just for you. Like you are the master of the universe! Quite heady. 

Another time I feel that driving power. Well, here is an example.

Traveling down a street or road and someone is at a corner or coming into the road from a side road and you are humming along and see them. Either they are coming onto the road from a parking lot, or they have a stop sign. 

I do this as I get closer and the other car seems to me is not going to stop. I put my finger---my pointing finger, not THAT OTHER finger. I put my finger up and say to no one in particular, “Sit! Stay!” Works every time. And that my fellow drivers is a real power surge. 

I may not have full control of a lot of things in life. I might only know how to cook eggs 8 ways out of the 100 ways I am told there are to cook eggs. But by crikey, I can feel driving power. 

There is an unwritten and little know thing we rural drivers, some of us with lead in our right foot, do while driving miles and miles getting to the nearest anything. We all know the speed limit and to cross that line is a no-no. Of course it is. Some of us, older than the invention of the wheel, remember when Nevada had no speed limits on the roads we travel. Well, now there are limits that we all adhere to too. Wink. Wink. But after a few hours of cows and brush, that foot tends to get heavy, causing the speedometer to rise to levels above posted speed limits. It is not defiance of the law, it is just plain, “are we there yet” voices in our heads that are the causation. Well, to avoid seeing the pretty blue and red lights reflecting off the headliners of our cars we may sometimes do this. 

There is always, always someone who needs to get “there” first and will pass me and others like me, who travel in accordance to the posted limits. (Every friend I have is laughing out loud!) Moving on. 

Well, here is what I have been told you can do. Let that speed demon pass. Let that speeder fly by. Then, with that same finger you use to tell side winders to “Sit and stay,” you say to the car as it goes by, “get up there ahead big boy and get all the Highway Patrol guys out of the way,” as you follow behind at about half a mile—doing their same speed. Only though, only during the daytime and when the roads are dry! 

No, it is not like I am telling any ole time driver secrets. Just keeping “ye ole wives’ tales” alive. 

Trina lives in Diamond Valley, north of Eureka, Nevada. She loves to hear from readers. Email her at [email protected]

Really!