Posted by: chupacabra
Posted by: mammal
Posted by: andy-eunson
A long time ago a boss of mine who drove slowly said that it wasn’t worth going fast. I’ll get there when I get there he said. There is no rush. It took about 40 years for me to get to that point. I tend to use cruise control set to 8 k over the limit. And leave early enough to get where I’m going on time. On the Sea to Sky I learned that driving fast simply got me to the slow cars faster and is I’d be waiting for the passing lane longer. It makes little time difference overall.
This is the way. It took me 26 years of driving to get here, and definitely helped along by living/commuting in Greater Van, but it's a safer and less stressful mindset. I have a 30min morning commute and 45min afternoon commute, and I probably safe 5 minutes max driving like a maniac and getting home all stressed out. Forget that, put on something you like to listen to and just cruise along.
I found Audiobooks were my savior on the Sea to Sky. I got an Audible subscription and I would plow through books on my daily 1 hr x 2 commute. Once I was into a good "read" I had zero interest in fighting the F-150s to get there first and like you said, it made almost no difference to my arrival time anyway.
Two things sorted me out:
1. I watched other cars on my commute and where they ended up relative to me. By the time I had been driving for 15 minutes in heavy traffic the mellow guy was usually right near me no matter how many hot moves I’d pulled.
2. My dog was killed by a car. It wasn’t on a road but a job site, but it hammered home to me in the most painful way possible how fucking dangerous cars can be when they bump a fleshy body the wrong way, and just how easily that can happen.
(To be clear: I’m not a total puss now, just a grown up; I still like to let ‘er rip when I’m in the ‘Benz on a quiet road with no kids in the car…)