Motoring happily together forever after

or until exit 3 doth us apart.

While uploading this shot I am reminded of one of my strangest driving experiences ever.
It was many moons ago, in North Carolina, when Mrs Raheny and I could hop on a plane and jet off* somewhere for the weekend to feed a new variety of mosquitoes.

The rental car was my first (and hopefully last) vehicle equipped with cruise control.

The guys who invented the automatic gear box to take the fun out of driving (you can't for love nor money rent a real car with a gear stick in the US) were small players compared to the sadist who invented the cruise control.

It makes for the ultimate boring driving experience.

You don't really know what to do with you feet. But you still have to hold the steering wheel, so it's not like you can hop on the back seat for a nap (or a cuddle with Mrs Raheny, we were young, childless and energetic back in the days...)

And then there is this guy in the Chevrolet, also equipped with cruise control, on the otherwise deserted motorway, also heading for the Outer Banks.

There was this guy, I kid you not, whose car's cruise control was set to a faster "cruising" speed, by perhaps a 100th of a kilometer per hour.
Well.... He proceeded to overtake us, and, I still kid you not, it must have taken him 75 kilometers to do so.

You know that awkward moment when you are sitting at the traffic lights and there is a car exactly level with yours, and you have turned you head to the side, and you have made eye contact with the driver beside you, but you don't want to be staring, and you look ahead of you now, and him too, and both are sort of afraid to look sideways again, or so you can tell from checking him from the corner of your eye?

Well imagine that situation. At exactly 100 km/hour. When he is doing 100.02 km/hour, over 75 kilometers and you are swearing under your breath that with one swift move of the steering wheel you are going to smash into him and make sure that his car explodes in a ball of fire in the central part of the motorway specifically designed to turn rude cruise controllers into an impromptu barbecue.

The alternative being to switch off your own cruise control (just pressing on the accelerator does the trick) and then either speed ahead, giving him the finger, or decelerate and let him control-cruise ahead of you.

But that would be admitting defeat.

Almost 2,000 blips and I realised this evening that (up until now), I had never been that "guy with the camera on the motorway bridge".

I had to do something about it.

But no way, get lost, I am not doing light trails. Go away!

I am not going to be that "guy with the camera and the tripod on the motorway bridge"


* I make it sound like we were millionaires but this is sadly not the case. We both worked for an airline and paid shag all for plane tickets...