Driving: don’t try to keep up with the station wagon with a kayak on the roof: driving myth 0

Self-tutoring about highway driving: the tutor tells an interesting story.

While some stereotypes tend to bear out sometimes, some are no better than urban myths.

Myth 0: The speeders on the highway tend to be people driving hot cars.

Fact: I’ve seen a few Ferraris, a couple of Porsches, and a couple of Nissan Skylines (very subtle) – all in city traffic. I’ve never seen a hot sports car on the highway.

Where I live, the people driving well over the speed limit on the highway are comparatively rare. Yet, I see a few every time I’m out there. (I don’t see them for long.) They usually drive everyday Asian-brand small cars up to 15 years old – ones you’d never notice in traffic.

Yesterday, I was driving the highway: traffic was heavy as I left the city for home. However, about 20 km on, I’d escaped the commuters.

There are a few stop lights on that highway. Alone on the road, I coasted to stop at one. I was in the right lane; as I reached the stop line, an import station wagon – maybe from around 2010 – was already stopped in the passing lane, going my same way. It had a kayak strapped to its roof. No-one was ahead of us; we were the only two cars going our direction who were stopped at the intersection. There we waited, side by side. No-one arrived behind us, either.

I wondered – “If this wagon has been alone on the road, why is it in the passing lane? It can’t be driving very fast, since it’s got a kayak strapped to its roof. Therefore, etiquette demands it should be in the right lane, like I am.”

The light changed and we both started off – not in a drag race manner or anything like that. However, the wagon accelerated slightly quicker, so ended up ahead of me. I reached the speed limit, but it was still pulling away. I raised my speed, to 10km/h over the speed limit: it continued to pull away.

I estimated, by the rate the wagon left me behind, that it was going 20km/h or 30km/h over the speed limit. I relaxed my own speed and watched it go.

Driving 130km/h or 140km/h with a kayak on the roof – that’s no small feat, especially for a compact station wagon, probably with a 4-cylinder engine. I don’t doubt the actual handling of the car would be more challenging from carrying the kayak, as well. Whoever was driving that wagon, they were serious.