An Open Letter

Just before I pulled off the highway on my exit for home, I got flashed down by a police officer and told to pull over. He said he was following me for about 3 miles, and I was going around 95 and he gave me a ticket. Since I was honest about it and respectful, he dropped the official speed to 84 mph, so I would be able to get it struck from my record by doing driving school. This won’t affect my insurance premium, since I can get it struck and so the only real consequence is the fine and the fact that this is now in the system so if I get pulled over again they will know this has happened before. All things considered, this is a fairly good outcome as it is more of a slap on the wrist, and it’s not like I got pulled over for going 130 yesterday lmao.

Honestly, the thing that affects me the most is how someone honked as I was getting pulled over. The cop said that person honked because he was happy I was being ticketed, and that made me really reevaluate my actions. I’m definitely not cutting it up or anything like that, but I do change lanes fairly frequently when I have a sizeable open space to go through, and in my eyes I am not inconveniencing anyone or affecting them since I am changing lanes without cutting someone off. But the fact that someone was upset and frustrated by me is something that really affects me, and I don’t want to upset or inconvenience others. I guess if I’m driving at the speed limit and I see someone who looks like they’re driving in a rush with changing lanes and so forth, I would see myself somewhat frustrated because they are doing something very different from what I’m doing. It probably doesn’t help that I got a Tesla, which people aren’t huge fans of already. I think I’m going to be a lot more conservative with my lane changes going forward, and it’s not even because of the fear of a ticket (which is another factor of course), but more because I thought that by changing lanes when I have plenty of space it wouldn’t affect others or upset them, but I guess it does. It’s probably for the best, but I do feel sad because driving fast is something I really enjoy. I guess I still can drive fast, just have to do it at the pace of traffic, and be a lot more sedentary with my driving. I hope I can find like a track or something like that near UCSB.