When traveling on major highways, I keep the cruise control a little bit below the speed limit. Everyone has to go around me and no one is in my way. Why didn’t I think of this before?
I just wish I was tiny, could barely see over the dashboard, and wore one of those old man plaid hats.
Next.
you use cruise control?
.. I never trusted them newfangled gadgets.
But you are in theirs. Yes, you are old; old, and in the way. That is the sure sign of being an “elder statesman”. Own it, pops.
I do the cruise control thing when I’m driving out-of-state, but I tend to keep it right at the speed limit. Everyone still passes me by. It’s nice. But on my home turf? NUH-uh. Nano’s a LEADFOOT. Zing. Zoom. Buh-bye. Yeah, it’s just a plain white Chev Malibu, but whaddayagonna do? 
Crotchety old f@rt in his tin can drivin’ like he’s a whippersnapper…
Last summer my father said to me, with some disdain in his voice, “I have three daughters who drive fast and two sons who drive like old ladies.” I also use cruise on those few occasions when I’m on a road without much traffic, and set it at 5 mph above the speed limit or around 66 or 68 on speed-65 roads. That’s driving like an old lady to my father. (My grandmother used to drive 45 when the speed limit was 70.) But then, I was riding with my youngest sister last summer and she was doing 85, talking about how she was doing 80 and almost hit a deer a few weeks earlier.
I set cruise on long, interstate drives. Speed depends on prevailing conditions, but usually 3-5 mph above limit.
I am probably the most cautious driver I know, and leave a very comfortable margin of space between me and the car in front. When anyone else is driving, and I am in the shotgun seat (rare situation, I am almost always the driver,) I use the imaginary brake.
I drive the same speed. Or so say my youngun’s. It’s way to fast on backroads-where I spend 90% of my life driving, but too slow for the open road. 
Enough talk of driving. I do to much of the stuff.
Yep, that’s me. Worst passenger in the world, just ask my wife. But I’ve never been in an accident* in 32 years of (legal) driving, and I don’t plan on it.
*Never made a claim. I slid on black ice twice, resulting in one broken directional lens and one alignment, and a guy backed into me in a parking lot, resulting in a damaged bumper sticker.
it is extremely rare that I’m not the driver.
3-5 over usually…more if it’s too curvy for a speed trap
the one ton dually diesel slowed me down a bit from the turbo t-bird
Awwww, you’re one 'a them..
with the big mirrors a’stickin’ out three feet on each side, too wide for narrow roads
ever lock 'em up with another? I see the evidence in the road on occasion around here.
I seldom move 'em out (only if I’m pulling the trailer far enough on the freeway)
& we offed the one ton for a 3/4 a year and a half ago
been ages since we’ve had a team of shires that we needed to move
minus the hat - we call those “Q-Tips” cuz all you see is white fuzz sticking up above the head rest.
A couple of months ago when the the cherry trees were blooming I was driving my Honda Civic slowly through a residential neighborhood that had some very nice mature trees. I heard this horn honk behind me and in my rear view mirror there was a young woman, driving a Yahoo Yukon SUV, motioning me to get out of the way. We were on a one lane road with a median so she couldn’t pull around me. I pulled to the side at the very next driveway just a few feet ahead. To be honest she may have been behind me for awhile although I doubt it. She pulled up along side and lowered her passenger window so that she could inform me I was a " slow geriatric old fart." I pointed out to her that was redundant so she called me an a____hole as she sped away.
On my motorcycle, I travel at speeds safe for the road conditions. That speed does not always match up with the posted limit.
You have do wonder about people who feel the need to do that.
Somewhere way back I heard a suggestion–maybe from a comedian–that a good approach to the honking would be to stop, get out, approach the driver’s window of the honker, and say “pardon me sir/madam, did you summon me?”
While I understand that impulse all too well, around here that would get a person shot now days. Plus my size has a tendency to intimidate people far beyond any intention on my part.
In my area, New England, I’m literally surrounded by hundreds of miles of hilly, twisty, perfect for motorcycle roads, especially the back roads. However, on any of the 365 days and nights of the year it’s entirely possible for one or more of those not-so-smart deer to rush out of the woods, right out into the road, and hitting one of them could really take the fun out of a ride! And, keeping that possibility in mind has no doubt contributed toward my having had a motorcycle operator’s license for now more than 38, active years.
Yet, apparently not even experience could prevent an accident with deer. Just in the past couple of years or so, an experienced and nationally well known motorcycle safety instructor was killed by hitting a deer while riding across the state of Texas at night, and IIRC his name was Larry Grodsky.
Ride safe, and keep it rubber side down!
My wife, the paragon of speed-limit-minding and cautious driving, was struck by two dear about two months ago. No, when the deer want to hit you, they will.
Scariest incident for me was almost hitting a turkey buzzard. I came around a corner and there it was, recycling some undiscernible pile of flesh. I spooked it. It tried to take off. Turkey buzzards are only graceful once they are gliding. Almost whacked him at 55 MPH.
My wife thinks that I drive too slowly most of the time. I embarass her, she says. In actuality, I usually drive at the speed limit or above. I reply to her that she drives way beyond her skill level, which in my opinion is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The fact that she hasn’t had an accident yet I attribute to the protection of guardian angels. FWIW, she did attend 12 years of catholic school. Who knows?
When I’m driving, I try to stay focused on my driving. Driving around the city I don’t listen to the radio or talk on the cell phone. I have found that I am not that good a multitasking when it comes to driving. Research shows that most people when tested show a significant loss of focus on their main task when they try to do something else at the same time. No sooner has the car door closed and my wife is reaching for the cell phone.
With regard to hitting a deer or other animal on the road, that is becoming more of a hazzard as the deer population increases. When I am driving out of town on a trip, I drive in the daytime. If I don’t have to drive at night, I don’t. In the daylight you can see safety hazzards (deer, debris on the road, construction irregularities, etc.) that you simply cannot see at night with the oncoming lights in your eyes. I plan my trips accordingly. Here again, my wife thinks that I am being overly cautious.
The last bit of huband/wife humor that I will share happened a few days ago. I was driving back from the grocery store on an inter-city 6-lane divided city street in heavy traffic. In the passenger seat my wife was looking out the window and commenting on what she was seeing. She said to me, “Doug, there is plane that looks like it is standing still”. We were driving near the airport, so naturally there are planes in the sky. She pointed out the side window, and said, " Doug, look!". I tried to explain to her that I was driving 50 m.p.h. on a congested street with cars on both sides of me and a few seconds in front of me and that I couldn’t take my eyes off the road and look for a plane. She sat in silence all the way home.
A friend of mine who is a dendrologist totaled his car at 65mph looking at trees. He and his wife decided it would be best for him to only drive in minimally treed areas of the city and she would attend to all other trips. While my vision may not be great it is very fast so I easily identify plants and animals at 65 mph or higher. Problem is by the time I say to my wife “Hey did you see that shrike?” we are a mile and a bit down the road. My wife however has a bird species that she has been crazy about since we were kids. Her reaction today is pretty much the same now as it was then. So when she sees one of the birds while I am driving she starts yelling “Look! Look! Look! A Great Blue!” after the first “Look!” I’m preparing for impact.
When my grandmother was 10 years old she had a pony which she rode with such reckless abandon that her daddy took the pony away.
She then (at age 10,) began driving my great-grandmother around in the new car, because her mom had no interest in learning to drive it.
Luckily, cars did not go so fast in 1918, and there wasn’t too much traffic on the road in Leesburg at the time, I guess.
By the time I was old enough to be freaked out by someone’s driving, she freaked me out on a regular basis. My sibs and l learned to try not to talk to her when she was driving because she’d look straight at you who were riding shotgun for, like 10 or 15 seconds, until it was all you could do not to yell “look at the road!”
Somehow she died without ever having had an accident.