i've never been very impressed by mornings. they tend to be completely overrated, and don't feature anything the rest of the day doesn't already have (except for sunrises, of course, but i like sunsets better anyway; they mean that the sun is finally going away for awhile). so my morning ritual is rather clipped, to ensure that the transition from sleep to work is as efficient as possible.

shower, shave, cereal, pack a quick sandwich & i'm out the door. that's cut to the bare bones, really; i need all that just to function properly. & to keep the pace quick & not waste much time once i'm in the car, the route i take for my lengthy 15-minute commute to work is straight north on meridian.

for those who aren't up to snuff on indianapolis trafficways, meridian street is the commuter street in indianapolis. it's big time, completely bisecting the city on its y-axis, spanning from suburb to suburb, from the northmost acres of hoity-toityville to the southmost reaches of b.f.e mountain. & since everyone on meridian in the mornings is in a rush to get to work/school/away from the cops/whatever, they tend to go fast.

oh, i'm sure there are faster streets around (remember that we're not talking about highway or interstate, just a street, with real stoplights & real sidewalks). now & again i get glimpses of the traffic jam meridian might someday become. plus they're tearing it up in a few places, with no signs of real progress (but what do i expect from construction?). nonetheless, the trend is to speed, & i'm happy to oblige.

when i was young & my sister first starting driving, i chided her for speeding. now that i'm older & wiser, i must apologize for my younger self. i just didn't understand. what do you want from a 10-year old?

for some crazy reason, when i was a kid i was deluded enough to think that speed limits were actually restrictions on how fast you should drive, & that crossing them was bad news, behavior that would anger the fates. now i understand that speed limits are more of a friendly suggestion, like someone saying, "you shouldn't go too much faster than this or you might have trouble making the turns."

in reality, everyone speeds (except the car right in front of you). in general, those gangmembers who wear brown or blue (i think they call themselves "cops" or something) don't even bother with you unless you're going at least 10-15 over, & then only when they have a quota to meet. because even they, as strict & quick to violence as they are, understand that the numbers on the signs aren't the best guides for how fast you should drive.

i haven't worked out the exact formula for driving speed, although i can tell you all the variables. a major one is the relative speed of all the other cars on the road. if everyone else is going 50, it doesn't matter if the sign says "15"; you'd better go about 50 or you'll get run over. closely related to this is the volume of cars on the road; if all you can see is taillights & everyone else is creeping along at 5mph, then it doesn't matter what the signs read. you can't go that fast, because there's nowhere to go.

other factors abound: road width, road surface, vehicle performance (i've been in some cars that couldn't break 60 if they were on amphetamines), visibility, proximity to destination, &c. all these & more affect the keen driver's velocity. it's both an art & a science. so experience the miracle of speeding for yourself, for only $99.95!