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Sunday, September 2, 2012

80. Get a move on!


Caroline doesn’t seem to be very aware of the speed she is driving when she is behind the wheel of my car.  Maybe she is more conscious of her rate of progress when she drives her own car but twice now I have found her to be completely oblivious to the speed we are travelling when she drives mine.
The first time I knew of this problem was in September 2010.  I mentioned it in "Not Funny".  We were on an empty, dry, straight section of the M6 toll road very early on a bright Saturday morning.  Caroline was driving and I saw that the speedometer was showing just less than 110 mph.
“The manual says that this car will do a hundred and fifty five,” I said.  “Do you want to give it a try?”
“Don’t be silly,” said Caroline, “Even though it’s a toll road, there’s still a seventy miles an hour speed limit.”
We’ve just spent a week with Matthias and Joanna and their two boys in the Medoc region of France, northwest of Bordeaux.  Joanna is Caroline’s sister and yesterday we drove home from there to Wavendon. 
As it is 690 miles by road the journey took us nearly 15 hours and we took turns driving.  Although it was tiring, it was straightforward and there were no problems on the clear French autoroutes.
All was straightforward, that is, until the last 13 miles.  The last section of the M1 before our turnoff has been undergoing upgrades for the last decade or so and for no discernable reason there is still a 50mph speed limit.
We were crawling along on cruise control in the inside lane and vehicle after vehicle was going past us.  I was feeling weary and uncomfortable and wanted to get home.  I looked over at the speedometer and saw that it was set at about 35. 
“For God’s sake, speed it up!” I shouted.  “Why are you going so slow?”
“I’m doing 54,” Caroline said, icily.  She was obviously beginning to feel very tired too.
“No you’re not and how can you be so precise?”
“Because it says so there,” she snapped, jabbing her index finger at the dashboard.
“That’s the outside temperature,” I sighed, wearily.
“Oh, so it is.”

2 comments:

  1. Serves you right for using Fahrenheit!

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  2. I would have it on centigrade but I worry that if the temperature dropped to zero Caroline would stop completely and if it then went to -1 she would start going backwards.

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