Maximum Street Speed Explained, Part IV

“To live outside the law,” Dylan sang, “you must be honest.” And so we come to the final part of a series that has offended some and delighted others. Just to provide some value to the querulous quislings of quaint quotidian travel, I’ll pass along one tip for the highway cell-phone snitch. Most highway patrol operations discount singular drunk-driving phone-ins, but they are not permitted to ignore reports of brandished firearms. Don’t like the speeder who just blew by? Call him in for waving a gun. Use a prepaid phone for this, as most cops have little patience for being used in this fashion. Some would say that snitching is bad; didn’t our mothers tell us not be little snitches? Still, you know what’s best for others, so go ahead and make that call.

The rest of us can take the offramp into the suburbs and exurbian roads and practice our maximum street speed here as well. We’d like to take most marked ramps at double the marked limit or above, and this will often lead us to interface with minivans, SUVs, and hybrids for whom the yellow advisory sign reflects a terrifying pinnacle of death-defying speed. Pass ’em on the outside of the lane. There are two reasons for this. The first is that you’ll maintain a higher speed for the same G-load. The second is that if you run out of talent or grip you will exit harmlessly away from the car you are passing, instead of inadvertently re-entering their lane and “PIT”ing them.

I’ve never had anybody acquire the presence of mind to block me in time when doing an offramp pass. It’s simply beyond the program of most road users. Don’t forget to wave in a self-deprecating, thankful manner as you go by. Most people will assume you’ve made some sort of mistake.

It’s nearly impossible to reach triple digits on surface streets, but that doesn’t mean we cannot flow at beyond traffic speeds. Forget about doing a series of back-and-forth lane-changes. That usually produces the same result it did in the movie “Office Space”. Instead, use the turn lane to run up to the end of traffic and then rejoin the main flow.

I’d be fibbing if I said that I always experienced perfect success with my “last-minute faux-forgetful merge technique”. Some drivers can be stubborn. To combat this, I purchased a 1991 Chevrolet Caprice Classic woodgrain-trim wagon, known as a “bubble” in the argot of the streets, and immediately experienced the freedom to merge without fear.

When operating vehicles at speeds of about 35mph or below, most motorists are alert enough to compensate for your traffic-defying behavior, up to and including temporarily driving in the oncoming lane. When I need to do something like jump a green light and left-turn an intersection before that traffic can start moving, I find it’s helpful to clutch a deactivated cell phone to my ear, as if I were enraptured by conversation. This fits into other drivers’ preconceptions—a distracted phone user—and they fail to take direct offense to aggressive action.

The fake cellphone is also a great aid to merging into occupied lanes. Move your car over, absolutely fail to make eye contact with any other drivers, look back once the merge is complete, wave the phone apologetically, and continue on.

Sometimes we’re in a situation where traffic simply isn’t moving and a U-turn is required. But there isn’t enough room or time to do one due to a tight road or approaching traffic. What to do? The answer is the “Jarno Donut.” It works with most RWD cars. Crank the wheel all the way to the left, rev to five grand, drop the clutch. The first time you try it you may wind up doing a 270 instead of a 180, so practice at home. Of course, it’s called a “Jarno Donut” in tribute to that outstanding qualifier and vintner, Jarno Trulli, who frequently finds himself backwards in his Toyota.

To open up room for aggressive maneuvers, we can take advantage of a certain panic response in most drivers. When they hear squealing tires in the immediate vicinity, curiosity and concern will make them slow down and scan the immediate area. If we need a car to move out of a lane and the adjoining one is open, we can drive up at a higher speed and engage the ABS next to them as we sail by. This almost always produces a sympathetic brake slam and opens the spot.

Final tip: every Prius ever made will always yield its road position to an aggressive driver, as will every car on the road with more than one “Obama ’08” sticker. Good night, and good luck.

[Click here to read Part I . . . or Part II . . . or Part III . . . of this series. Note: as these editorials have triggered some strong emotions, I’ve turned off our no-flaming the website/author policy. Ish. I reserve the right to douse particularly egregious examples in an entirely first amendment friendly sort of way.]