Third Gear: An Anatomy of a Bad Lahorie-Overtake

“If his unpleasant wounding has in some way enlightened the rest of you as to the grim finish beneath the glossy veneer of criminal life, and inspired you to to change your ways, then his injuries carry with it an inherent nobility, and a supreme glory. We should all be so fortunate, you say poor Toby? I say poor us.”

Cruising in 4^th, clear skies, cool winter night, idiot in a silver Cultuss in the right-lane up ahead doing a steady +10, thinks he’s doing 200 kph (and so doesn’t feel the need to look in his rear-view mirror). I wonder if it being this cold should let me worry less about my brakes overheating. Aunty (silver CL9) in the middle-lane, a little further ahead, but slowing down for some inexplicable reason.. watch.. the bright light of her cell-phone glows long enough to illuminate her face through the light tints for a split-second and disappears. Two motor-cyclist in loose (unintended) formation clogging the left-lane. Black 1.8 Honda up ahead, center lane, spotted through the aunty’s windshield, and a White V8 Grand Cruiser minding his own business further up in front, right-lane. Electronics, check: Disturbed, Shout 2000. Apparently not their original (the original seems quite teh faggy compared to this version), but who cares… it’ll do. Handbrake is fully down, windows up, A/C off, seat belt on (the seat belts to make sure lateral acceleration on the car doesn’t force me to use my hands on the steering or my feet on the pedals to keep me on my seat :D)

“I thought you were from Long Beach.”

Throttle blip to smooth out the down-shift to 3^rd. The pitiful 2.0 liter diesel engine groans, the car vibrates to show mal-adjusted weights on the air filter. Third to fourth is the easiest, fastest switch. As the clutch passes the half-way mark, left hand pushes the gear into neutral, and then into third just as the clutch hits the bottom, and then back to the clutch point for a millisecond, and then completely released. About a third of a second if my guess is right. Any faster and you’re asking for trouble.

The seat hugs from behind. Even a diesel jap car can let you feel a little acceleration. Since I don’t have an RPM meter, I judge my gear usage by speed. Changing gears during an overtake is asking for trouble, but for this car 3^rd red-lines at around 95 kph. For street driving, if you feel the need to do above 80, you’re racing, and on General XP 2000 tires, racing is just over-glorified suicide, so, third it is.

In a faster car, the closing gaps would not have been an issue. Motion recognition circuits in the brain light up, calculating simple speed-time-distance. As always, an end-note to the calculations is a slight grump and a wish for more horsepower. I continue in a straight line to gather speed and time my jink so that it neither appears rude nor intrusive. It’s also done smoothly to keep body-roll to a minimum and to not appear as if I’m a rash driver (I’m not, honest). I keep one eye on the aunty (aunties are notorious for doing unpredictable things on the road. so much so that if one DOES do something crazy and you get hit, it’s actually YOUR fault because you should have been expecting it) and another to see a change in demeanor of the idiot. Luckily, very few people change their demeanor while driving unless someone pisses them off intentionally or otherwise. The clueless idiot doesn’t seem to be planning to floor it anytime soon. He’s probably on CNG anyway, it’s too late for him now unless he’s hiding a supercharged V8 under that hood. With that kinda probability, I’d expect myself to find Angelina Jolie waiting in bed for me when I get back home.

I move in front of the cultuss just as i see the aunty fly past on my left, her steering straight, front tires the same. Won’t need to keep an eye on them anymore. The beginning of the cultuss comes up into my right sideview mirror at just the right distance (Good, the idiot didn’t get all huffy puffy and floor it to try and catch up). I notice the 1.8’s gotten ahead of the V8 SUV just as I’m blinded by the idiot’s cheap HID lights. I know they’re cheap because they’re obnoxiously bright and aimed to blind other drivers. I flip the switch on my rear-view but I’ve lost the use of my sideview mirrors for a second or two. Well, that shouldn’t be a problem unless the aunty discovers the wonders of her 2.4 liter engine (or coughs or sneezes and accidentally floors the accelerator pedal). Jink back left, along side the SUV, the 1.8 dead ahead. The SUV’s apparently noticed my moving lights in his rear-view over the glare of the idiot’s HIDs, and is alerted to my attempts. I feel vulnerable, dependent on the mercy of a car that weighs twice as much as mine and has thrice as much horsepower. I now have two choices (well, technically I have three, braking is always a choice, but there’s an aunty behind me and I don’t want to be the one who makes her discover the concept of braking distance). Either I can floor it and out-accelerate the SUV, cut in front of him, and overtake the Honda 1.8. This would depend on the V8 not knowing what his car is capable of; the law of the land allows him to muscle his way forward and stop my overtake, and besides, I’m already close to my self-imposed 80 kph speed limit (the convenient rule of thumb being, if you’re planning on doing something that requires you to be above 80, it’s something stupid and dangerous). A safe bet would be to overtake the Honda from the left (Islamabadis reading this all collectively gasp in shock) and leave the V8 be, but that would entail peeking to get a clear view of any difficult to spot cyclists in the way, and effectively wasting time that could be spent accelerating to overtake the SUV.

Dilemma.

Worse, the Honda senses somethings wrong behind and him and decides to brake. Random braking should be a sin. I am forced to hurry my choice, if I waste any more time before committing I end up flirting with the inner margins of my braking distance. The last thing I want is an ungracious exit in the middle of squealing, screeching, burning rubber.. safe or otherwise.

I rebel against the music, and feeling old, wise, choose the simplest solution. Switch to 4^th early and accelerate smoothly past the Honda from the left, center up in front of him to see the V8 still cluelessly chugging along. Blah. Wasted. I recognize the manhole cover and the slight bump in the road as my braking point as I make my left-turn from the traffic signal, double-shift down. I make a wide exaggerated turn, using the three unmarked lanes to the fullest, and straighten out a little early from the turn. I grin as my pathetic stock 175s are steered delicately between the cats eyes, just as I look up to notice the the Honda, the V8, the idiot and the aunty all drive straight on from the signal in my rear view.