If you have ever had a car that was even remotely powerful you have probably been challenged by someone else on the road to a race of sorts. I know it happened to me a couple of times in my life and both situations were really stupid. The first time was in a Toyota Celica GTS which looked more like a fast car than it really was but it has pretty good acceleration off the line, it just had no top end. The second time I was driving a Honda S2000 that didn't even belong to me. I regret to say that I took the bait both times even though both of us were in danger, and not just of getting a ticket. The speed I reached in the S2000 was over 135 miles per hour and in that little vehicle, it would have been instant death if I had crashed.
It's stupid.
But what if you are driving a company vehicle like, I dunno, a USPS delivery van?
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I know from personal experience that street racing is dumb, but this particular race is quite amusing to me for a number of reasons. For one thing, while things have improved in recent years the US Postal Service has a bit of a reputation for being exceptionally slow in anything that they do - this is why if you want something done quickly you involved the services of UPS, FedEx, or some other similar service. So when one of their drivers is doing 100 miles an hour the irony is just too much to resist.
Also, I know from having rented a lot of cars in my life that according to the Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson, the fasted car in the world is a rental car. Now the USPS employee here isn't driving a rental car, but she is driving a car that she doesn't need to be concerned about if she actually damages it. I know from experience that the times I did something stupid in a vehicle that I actually pay for, that there is a bit of fear the entire time because I know that if I break it, I already did buy it.
I'm gonna let a little bit of sexism sneak in here and say that I was a bit surprised to find out that the driver of the vehicle was a woman.
This surprisingly didn't take place in Florida and I can only presume that is because of traffic congestion. Once the USPS workers in Florida catch wind of the extremely minor penalty that the women faced as a consequence of doing this, it is only a matter of time before they replicate the situation and probably in a much more crazy way.
The light penalty is a bit upsetting to me because she was only given a $50 fine and didn't even lose her job. I recall getting caught at a traffic "trap" at one point where I was going just like 8 miles over the speed-limit and was forced to go to court and had to pay more than double that. She was over 40 miles per hour over the speed limit and got a tiny fine and a "warning." I guess government employees look out for their own.
If you find yourself in a situation where you can street race, I strongly encourage you to not do so. It simply isn't worth it and honestly, even if you do win, what do you really win?
I don't know if you saw the episode of Top gear with the white van going around the Nuremburg Ring. Sabeen Schmidt the track specialist was at the wheel and she was overtaking motorbikes and sports cars. Never underestimate a white van lol.
oh that was incredible. Thanks for sharing that!
Pleasure. Unfortunately she died from cancer a few years ago and was a real hoot. She was the pro driver in charge of the Nuremburg ring.