Traffic tickets

I've had a grand total of two in the 37 years I've been driving. I can assure you it's not because I always abide by the speed limit.
Proud Hillbilly's post about her long commute and lost keys got me to thinking about my bi-weekly drives to Austin and my own daily commute.

I get this funny, "something's not right feeling" sometimes when I'm booking it down the highway.
I've learned to listen to that quiet voice that tells me to back off the throttle just a bit.  70 might be better than 80.

It happened on the way home from work tonight. Left late, after the rush hour traffic was done and done, but there was a wreck on 290  that was messing things up so I elected to take the tollways to get past most of it.

On the inclined entrance ramp to the Westpark tollway not a car in sight in front of me. One thing my little Scion tC will do is climb hills.  A little tweak on the gas pedal drops it into 5th gear and it actually accelerates, going up hill.  It pisses off pickup truck drivers tailgating me. They do catch up eventually though.*
The speed limit in the first few miles of the tollway where I get on is 55. I was at 70 and climbing before I got to the top of the hill.  As I was coming to the merge where it becomes two lanes and the speed limit bumps up to 65.
 I got that funny feeling and my foot reflexively backed off the throttle.
I was decelerating from about 72 to 70 as I blew past an unmarked, and I mean "unmarked" PoPo SUV sitting on the right shoulder.
White.  No Markings.  No antennae. Very dark tinted windows.
I did make out a light bar in the back window as I got closer. The dead give away was the driver's window down and the radar gun. Of course by the time I saw that, the brain is saying, " well, I'm screwed."
So I just held it steady at 70 and kept going, watching my rear view mirror to see if the PoPo lit it up.
He didn't, so after I got over the next overpass I drove like one of my great aunts the rest of the way home.**


*  If I happen to run up behind someone with out of state plates. I've written about this before people! If you are going to bunch up and drive slow, do it in one freaking lane!

** Actually, the cops down here tend to work speed traps in pairs. Not seeing another after a few miles I ramped the RPM back up.  Hey. I haz to get home and gots to grocery shop on the way.