Speed limit

In a meeting one day this week someone made the comment: “Addicted to Speed.” It really made me think. We are so extremely addicted to things that are fast and furious. Think about it for a moment. We get impatient when our smart phone does not sync our email fast enough, or when our internet speed is too slow one day. We may be on the phone with a colleague and they say they sent that document to us via email, and we wait on the phone watching our inbox until it arrives.

We cannot download content fast enough over the Internet, we hate waiting for HTML images to download from our email. If we want to view a photo on Facebook and our phone does not have the best signal we get frustrated. The need for speed. We so badly want to honk the horn when the car in front of us is not driving the speed limit. Yes I am the worst offender and often I am in the passenger seat. Note to all: husbands dislike when we try to use the horn when we are not driving.

We want the pot on the stove to cook faster, either because we are very hungry, or we have other things to do. We dislike automated voice controls because they are slow and frustrating and if we could just talk to a human we could be done with our phone call faster. We want the cashier to go faster, but we miss out on that moment in our day when we can just stand and breathe.

We tend to always want to move to the next best thing, and get their as fast as possible, whether we are competing with ourselves or someone else. Why has the world gotten so fast? What are we missing by going this pace? Will we learn to slow down and just appreciate the moment?

#whytheneedforspeed

Ugh. Yes. I started my blog out with ugh. Photo cops. Vans with computerized radar guns. They sit in camouflaged areas in hopes of nailing speeders. I drove past one over the weekend, and my mind started to wonder, why do we have photo cops? A few years ago I got a speeding ticket while going over a bridge in Portland. It is hard to explain my side of the story because it was on a bridge where the speed limit changes three times while on the bridge. I never noticed the photo cop, and other than an address on the ticket that does not really exist (it is a bridge) it is hard to know where they took a photo of my car. The ticket showed I was speeding at the start of the bridge, and my 6 mph over the speed limit came out to a $200 ticket. All taken by a van with a radar camera.

Here is what I found out: The photo radar van can take two photos every second. There is an uniformed officer stationed in the van. I always thought they parked the vans and came back later. If there is an officer in the van, why not put the lights on and come after the offender? $200 seems like a hefty fine for 6 mph over the speed limit, which made me think it was another way for Portland to make more money, but their website states that any money from paid speeding tickets goes back to the photo radar program.

My frustration with photo cops: If you are going to give me a speeding ticket, follow me in a cop car, pull me over and give me a ticket. Do not rely on a van with a computer. It feels like calling a company and being repeatedly sent through the automated prompts on their phone line, over and over again. I want the personal interaction of the cop that pulls me over, let him yell at me, or let me explain where my head was, or about the signs, or let me just admit I was speeding. I would take that any day to receiving an envelope in the mail days or weeks later with a high price tag. A ticket in the mail seems more passive aggressive. Right?

I know they are supposed to deter drivers from speeding, but it feels like getting caught sneaking out at night by a robot rather than your parents. What do you think?