Not long ago while driving in the U.K., I was shocked to see a single-track road, with less than 50 yards of visibility at all times and somehow meant to accommodate two-way traffic, with a 60 mph speed limit. I was later kindly informed, by an ex-pat Brit friend who grew up driving on such roads, “That’s the speed limit — you don’t have to go that fast!”

The last time I heard this was when I was a young, learner's-permit driver in the mid-80s. Mom was a terrible passenger at the best of times, and the blue mouse-fur interior on her caucasian-inner-forearm-beige ’85 Grand Prix had an insufficient number of oh-crap handles for her to grab on to as I trundled cautiously through the smoothly-paved neighborhood with visibility for days. Feet stomping ghost pedals on the passenger’s side, sharp intakes of breath, hands struggling to grip as I’m on my best behavior, in broad daylight. In a string of traffic on a Monmouth County, New Jersey back road, I’m going 44 mph on a 45 mph road, with ample space behind the car ahead of me using the one-Mississippi-two rule. I'm being good and doing it right. Despite traffic ahead and behind, I am constantly being admonished to slow down. “I’m going the speed limit!” I finally protest. And then came the words that will live in my head until the day I shuffle off this mortal coil, and even then will continue to haunt me in whatever afterlife awaits me:

“Just because that’s the speed limit doesn’t mean you have to go that fast!”

This foolishness hands-down beat my dad riding shotgun; he just yelled. And when the echo of his rage had finally been absorbed into the headliner and upholstery, he yelled some more. I accelerated, he yelled. I turned, he yelled. I avoid an obstacle in the road — a dead skunk, in one instance — and he yelled louder. It’s not that what I did was wrong or illegal — it’s just not how he would have done it, and was therefore wrong.

This was in the waning days of the 55 mph speed limit, a figure that made me want to yell too. When the nation shook itself from those bonds, my home state insisted on keeping the double-nickel, and did so for as long as I remained there. As someone who commuted 162 miles a day round-trip for his minimum-wage magazine gig after college, 55 mph felt unreasonable: less time on the road meant more time for sleeping (for example), which would make me a healthier and more alert driver when I was commuting on the Garden State Parkway. And 195. And 78. And 287. And 80. All in one day. New Jersey’s State Troopers collectively disagreed with my assessment. Ultimately they won and I left the state. The stress of that drive – or rather, the fear of getting busted while simply trying to go home – contributed more to my grey hair than fatherhood ever did.

Be quick and read on...