There is an elementary school in my neighborhood on a street that is normally 35MPH, but twice a day it slows to 20. There are tons of flashing lights and signs everywhere; it’s nearly impossible not to notice that this is a school zone. The zone lasts about 10 blocks. In the past three years, three kids have died in separate incidents as a result of speeding vehicles in this school zone. There are little memorials along the side of the road like a small graveyard. This zone is also routinely patrolled by cops; about 3 days out of the 5 days of the week that the school zone lights are flashing, you will find cops parked on a particular side street clocking drivers.
Last week some lady came speeding up on me in this school zone while the lights were flashing. There was a van in the lane next to me. It was partially alongside my vehicle, but slightly ahead of me, so she whipped into that lane and pulled up on his butt. Her front bumper was just to the left of my window, and as such I could easily see that his rear bumper was less than a foot in front of her front bumper. She was stupidly close, even for only 20MPH. She began gesticulating and visibly screaming and probably spraying spittle on her dash. She obviously felt that it was an extreme inconvenience to her that we weren’t speeding.
I kept my speed steady to match the van next to me just because I have no patience for people behaving this way and I was not inclined to reward her by letting her pass. The longer this went on the more enraged she became. I was bent on keeping her from passing at this point just out of spite, but when we were about three blocks from the side street where the cops hide out I changed my mind. I dropped my speed and let her gain on me. By this point she was so enraged that as soon as she thought she was clear of my front bumper she swerved over into my lane with no signal, cutting me off, and hit the gas in a show of victory. She was accelerating so rapidly that she was probably doing at least 45MPH when she passed the motorcycle cops. You could tell exactly when she noticed them because she hit the brakes so hard that her car visibly swerved.
I tried not to smile too smugly as I watched getting pulled over. Good luck getting to work on time now, lady. Oh, yeah, and a ticket for going double the posted speed in a school zone with mandatory doubled fines? Good thing you can afford a Lexus.