Stories:Speed Bumps

thumb|400px|center|Speed BumpsAuthor: C3PO. As someone who remembers where I learned all the things that I've learned, I am frequently reminded of things that I learned from Vygis. Many of them were small things, just little hints and tips that made up the fog of his personal philosophy. Thus, I am reminded on a daily basis of Vygis every time I encounter a speed bump in the road. In his chosen career as a pizza delivery boy, he was proudly outraged at these civic attempts to slow down his driving speed in neighborhoods, and worked obstinately to defeat them. Aside from the sour grapes method of going insanely fast between speed bumps wherever they were installed, he once showed me a great technique for neutralizing the effectiveness of speed bumps in certain circumstances. It turns out that speed bumps are frequently not installed in such a way that they span an entire lane. Contrary to what you might expect, if there is any flat road along the edge of a speed bump, steering a car such that the wheels on one side of the car stay on the flat part to one side of a speed bump or the other makes it so you hardly feel the bump. Thanks to one side staying level, the suspension of the car smooths out the usual forward and back rocking that you'd otherwise get from going over a bump; you basically don't even have to slow down at all. Now I hunt for the opening whenever I encounter one of these, just for the delight in defeating the system, and the ghost of Vygis is there approvingly every time.
Category:Stories
Category:Author:Charles Dickson