~ by Chris #16 Demaras ~
You’re not like those hooligans on the news. Sure you go a couple clicks over the limit, but just to keep up with the flow of traffic. It’s not like those Fast & Furious movies had a permanent impact on you! That’s what I used to think.
On sunny Saturday afternoon I was driving my son’s Subaru WRX, the one with the STI engine. Cruising in the left lane, northbound on Hwy 400 outside of the city limits, heading to a used car lot to check out a late-model WRX for my wife’s new daily driver. There we were, a perfectly normal middle-aged couple driving along in the diamond lane, when a black Honda Civic Type-R appeared in the rearview mirror.
I was already doing 120 km/h, quicker than the rest of the cars, so this guy had no right to be pushing me like that. Plus, I was in the diamond lane so I couldn’t cross the solid lane to let the Honda pass… not that I would have.
The diamond lane suddenly split into two lanes, like a drag strip. The double-solid lines on the right protected us from lesser drivers, so me and the Honda were going to settle this ourselves. He popped out to the right and the V-Tech kicked in. As he pulled next to me to attempt a passing maneuver, I mashed the gas pedal to grab another gear and let the Garrett turbocharger sing; 125 km/h, then to 130 km/h, pushing on to 135 km/h but the Honda wouldn’t back down.
At 140 km/h I just had to let off. Anything more than this and it’s not just a ticket; it’ll be a stunt driving charge. I let off the throttle and the blow-off valve let out a sharp PSHHT of pressurized and intercooled air. The Honda driver kept his foot in it, and must have topped out at 150 km/h before cutting in front of me as the diamond lanes merged together. With our impromptu drag race over, the Honda returned to the original 120 km/h cruising speed, and I felt defeated.
In my peripheral vision, I noticed a car keeping pace with me a couple lanes over, but getting closer. A glance to the right revealed a battleship grey Dodge Charger with big meaty tires on plain old steel wheels. That’s a sleeper set up only used by nefarious street racers… and cops.
The undercover pulled next to me, accelerated a bit, then changed lanes to get right behind that Honda. The cop turned on the cherries, but the Honda wouldn’t give. He kept going along, as if nothing was wrong, forcing the cop to pull up next to the driver and point to the curb lane. Seems that driving 50 km/h over the limit and street racing a WRX wasn’t that ‘bad’ in the Honda driver’s mind… but crossing the solid line was apparently a no-no.
Both kind of shocked, my wife and I looked at each other in disbelief. We were only a couple click from a street racing charge. If I hadn’t backed off at 140 km/h it would be me getting the 30 day license suspension; and how would I explain to my kid that I got his car impounded! After all those speeches and ‘Take It To the Track‘ sermons, I wasn’t even practicing what I preached. My wife warned me that they probably radioed ahead to another cop to pull me over, so I slinked over to the curb lane at 101 km/h to await my fate. As the racing gods would have it, I escaped by the skin of my teeth.
We noticed that police on both sides of the median had stopped speed demons; it was a blitz. And apparently there’s a spree of speeders on a sunny Saturday for the highway patrol to select from. How lucky that the Rally Blue paint and rumbling exhaust on the WRX didn’t convince the cop to pinch me too.
Reading the news the next day, I saw this statement from an Ontario Provincial Police press release:
“The OPP reminds all motorists that excessive speed and aggressive driving behaviour poses serious risks to everyone on the road. Officers will continue proactive enforcement efforts to promote safe driving across the region.”
– Constable Derek Tilley, Orillia OPP
- Remember those automatic speed enforcement cameras they took out a couple weeks ago? And the photo radar the cops used to use on the 400 series highways? Without those deterrents the OPP is back to using good-old speed traps and enforcement blitzes. Just on Hwy 11 and parallel Hwy 400 north of Toronto, the OPP caught:
- – a 29-year-old man driving 153 km/h in a 90 km/h zone on Hwy 11 northbound
- – a 21-year-old man with only a G2 licence, charged with going 144 km/h in a 90 km/h zone
- – a 19-year-old woman, charged with stunt driving, after going 189 km/h in a 100 km/h zone on Hwy 400
- – a 17-year-old teenaged girl observed driving 163 km/h in a 100 km/h zone on Hwy 400
- – an 18-year-old teenaged boy, charged after a traffic stop off Hwy 400 in Orillia, for failing to display licence plates, and operating a vehicle without an ignition interlock system (a condition on his licence, likely from a previous DUI conviction)
All these drivers were charged with stunt driving under the MOMS Act (Moving Ontarians More Safely) and if not for the grace of the racing gods, I could have been one of those goofs getting their cars towed away. I guess that because I don’t go out on ‘runs’ after car meets, street racing from glory. Makes me think I’m above those hooligans that I watch removing their plates in the Tim Horton’s parking lot after a meet. But I’m no better. And at least those guys don’t pretend to be civilized members of society like I do.
While my wife was out test driving the new-to-her turbocharged Subaru WRX with the bigger 2.4L boxer engine pumping out 271 HP and 258 TQ, I took a good, long look at the man in the rear view mirror and asked if I am actually part of the problem?
Don’t be so hard on yourself, so many are stressed these days. I remember doing 15 over with a guy that was riding my butt. I was in my 67 Galaxy 500 and with the rear up a bit and slanted and me young and dumb I said to my friend beside me with a nose full of cotton from a bad wreck “What I’m not going fast enough?” so pedal to the metal with Beach Boys blaring in the stereo I heard a faint siren that was not in the song. 🙂 With dad a racer I knew he would take my car away but the cop was just as happy reading me the riot act and wanting to know if I wanted to look like my friend, after I lost control. No ticket for this young blonde with blue eyes I sort of wish I had been given one, as my bad behavior went on for too many years.
Been there, done that. A number of years ago I had a Mitsubishi Eclipse GT convertible. There was a barely a week that went by where a hooligan tried to get me to race. I just gave them a tip of the hat and let them know I wasn’t going to play their game. That nonsense can get very expensive very quickly!
Speed limits are much different in Deutschland. From 30 kph in some villages (50 kph is the normal village speed limit) to no speed limit zones on the Autobahn. What’s crazy is the winding one-lane-wide, two-way traffic roads with speed limits posted at 100 kph. Those roads are a bit hairy in a normal car, but they would be a blast in my MX-5 or on a motorcycle.