The Big 'C' Meaghan Woodsome Driving along the highway from Worcester to my home in Maine is a monotonous, mind-numbing experience. The straight lines of road, signs, intersecting bridges and tall bare pine trees funnel cars along at breakneck speeds.
Signs advertise restaurant drive-throughs and gas station and toll booth speedpasses.
Conveniently, airplanes now monitor drivers, so that when they go beyond the silently understood speed limit of 80 m.p.h. they needn t be slowed by the process of getting a ticket. When police are on the road they don t target speeding Mac truck bullies, those mammoths of interstate commerce, but rather drivers who dare to fly along with the big bullies of the road. Nothing insists on a moderation of speed, nor on the interaction of the driver with another human being. We all speed along to our final destination, not slowing to search and understand our surroundings. The ultimate goal in such a commute is to get from point A to point B in the shortest time possible, with the least amount of interaction and distraction.