Even though we’re supposed to avoid touching our faces these days, I couldn’t help but facepalm upon seeing the headline that nearly a dozen doofuses had been impounded for excessive speeding along Highway 99 in a single week.
And, to be clear, that’s not pushing a little bit past the unwritten (and, hey, at least officially, an urban legend) 10%-over rule to see what you can get away with — it’s 40-plus kilometres an hour over the posted limit.
Given my career choice, I’m not sure I’ve even ever owned a car that could go 40 over, but let’s at least try to get into the minds of those who made these choices, shall we?
Well, OK, ripping along a twisty, turny stretch of highway isn’t the right thing to do in normal times because there are other drivers and their passengers on the road — parents, grandparents, children, and, well, people just trying to live their dang lives.
It would be absolutely tragic and unfair for anything bad to happen to them just because I want to play-act like I’m in the Indianapolis 500. (Let’s at least suspend our disbelief and give ‘em the benefit of the doubt here.)
But voila! Look at those free and clear stretches of road ahead of me now.
It only took nearly three million cases and almost 200,000 deaths of a global pandemic, but I’m not really endangering others, so in my head, I can finally be Mario racing away Rainbow Road.
Never mind that the Sea to Sky is bare because provincial authorities have told us all to stay at home other than for essential travel — I can afford a Lamborghini (or a, uh, Toyota Corolla), so it’s my God-given right to be the inspiration for Need For Speed: Forest Service Road.
Also, I’m an amazing driver, so nothing’s going to happen to me that would place a strain on an already-taxed first responder workforce.
And, I mean, if worse comes to worse, I’m not the selfish one for needing assistance because the medical personnel and police officers and BCAA jack-of-all-trades knew what they were getting into when they chose their careers, right?
Of course, that absolutely still applies during an unforeseen contagion where they’re putting their lives on the line while I presumably film my audition tape for the umpteenth The Fast and the Furious sequel. They’ll have to cast me now, right?
Thought experiment over; I see nothing wrong with this line of thinking. Do you? [Insert facepalm here.]
Dan Falloon is the sports editor for Pique Newsmagazine. He is writing on a variety of topics for The Chief during the pandemic.
