When I was young I used to wonder why the young drove so fast and the old drove so slow. It seemed to me then that it should be the other way around since the old had so much less time left to them.
Later I came to realize that the old people knew from experience that it didn't make that much difference if you saved 42 seconds.
One of my closest friends in Spain frequently makes car trips from his town, Quintanar, to Sevilla in the south. He is a safe driver but once decided that he would drive as fast as all of the other crazies on the road to see how much time he saved.
ReplyDeleteIt is a 5(ish) hour drive and he estimated that he saved around 20 minutes by going significantly over the speed limit but that it wasn't worth it since he was stressed out the whole time worrying about getting pulled over.
Later, when it was my time to do it, I came to know that what old people are doing is wisely making accomodations for their reduced reflexes.
ReplyDeleteNow that it is my time to “do it” I prefer to think that I am operating in accordance with the laws of physics that I did not fully appreciate when I was 20.
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