Vermont’s latest outbreak of lawlessness lacks the drama of the juicy murders or the sex-driven violence that our local television news programs so dearly love. But it is more widespread and almost surely more dangerous to more people.

We’re driving too fast.

Or at least enough of us are to endanger ourselves and others and to displease the State Police, who are determined to do something about it.

According to a weekend report on Vermont Public Radio, the State Police have instituted “saturation patrols” on the most heavily travelled stretch of Interstate-89, where drivers have been so careless or incompetent that in a six-week period five drivers ran their cars into police cruisers that were parked off the travel lanes.

Unless one is actually playing a part in a comedy movie, running one’s car into a police cruiser is almost always to be avoided.

In what appears at first glance to be another lame effort to imitate slapstick cinema, one evening something like 40 cars slid off I-89 in Williston.

Yes, just in Williston, as one officer reported. Only about 6.4miles of the highway run through Williston. That’s an awful lot of cars sliding off the road in one short stretch on one evening. Too bad nobody was there with a movie camera. It might have been funny.

Not to the State Police, who think they know why all these drivers lose their cool, their composure, and their tire traction at the same time. They are driving too fast for the condition of the road, a condition that can be described in one word: snow-covered.

On that crazy night, in Williston, for instance, most of the cars that ran into the median did so from the left (passing) lane. The reasonable assumptions are (a)  that they were trying to pass the cars in front of them; and (b) the left lane, being less travelled, was snowier.

Whereupon we come to the mathematical formula somewhat less celebrated than E=mc squared, but more relevant to the current discussion: MS + MS = MS squared. Or, more speed, plus more snow, equals more slipperiness and more sloppiness.

But, protest many drivers, the speed limit on I-89 is 65 miles per hour. Therefore, if one is going less than 65 (as indeed most of them were, even as they slid off the left lane onto the median) they were not going too fast.

We have here a misunderstanding which is at the same time legal, geographical, and cultural. Speed limits are maximums. The driver who slides off the road in the rain or snow is obviously going too fast for that road in the rain or the snow. In fact, the driver who slides off a curvy section of road on a dry, sunny day is going too fast for that section of road and for his or her abilities.

Should you be that driver, and should you get a ticket and contest it, telling the judge that you couldn’t have been speeding because you were going under the speed limit, you would lose. That  judge would cast a weary eye upon you, and perhaps explain that you obviously should have been going slower ,before he levied the fine.

Plus court costs.

That’s the legal misunderstanding. The geographic misapprehension is that (to fill you all in on a secret), this is Vermont. It snows in the winter. Therefore Vermonters ought to have figured out some decades ago that it is likely to take them longer to get wherever they have to go when they have to go there from December through March. And sometimes into April.

That’s because when there is snow on the ground one has to drive more slowly, even on the interstate. The State Police suggest 45 miles per hour, and they are ticketing drivers who go faster under snowy conditions.

Now we approach the cultural part of the confusion. Because in order to get where one is going on time while driving more slowly, one has to…(the logic here may be hard to follow, but it is indisputable)… either leave earlier or arrive later. The first of those options might require waking up earlier. Or doing without that nother cup of coffee. The second might involve getting home (or wherever) a little later. Or not doing something one wanted to do. Or adjusting one’s schedule.

And why is this cultural? Because in our culture one does not want to do any of these things, and here “one” is not a Vermonter, but an American. Not only do Americans live busy, hectic, lives; Americans love the fact that they live busy, hectic, lives. It makes them feel important. It provides them with self-esteem.

Raising the distinct possibility that too many Americans have more self-esteem than is (a) deserved; (b) safe; and (c) permissible in wintertime in Vermont according to the standards set by the State Police.

Think a little less of yourself. Leave a little early. Have a safe trip.

Tags: Vermont State Police

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 10th, 2009 at 12:15 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.