Heed the speed limit--or else

Most people must think that it's the fall that might kill you on Kanan Road heading to the beach. It's actually the speed limit, or at least driving the speed limit that could kill you for sure.

The patchwork of speed limits can jump 20 mph within yards of each other. My favorite is the 35 mph downhill limit for sure. But I do that limit to the letter. I have had to risk my life and take on blinking lights, being passed in no pass zones and a variety of "hand gestures" in the rearview mirror to do it.

Recently I was driving that road at night. I was picked out as the fourth car in a line of six by a CHP using radar, who was heading the opposite direction as me and who did a sliding U-turn to cite me for speeding at 10 miles over the 45 mph limit. I am not making this up.

Hundreds of dollars in fines, and spending a Sunday locked up at a local hotel room listening to a former alcoholic deliver his messages of traffic law and temperance later, I did not want to meet Robo-CHIPS again.

I now go the exact speed limit on Kanan Road. I am in a great deal of danger doing it. Furious drivers pile up behind me. I lane drift, keeping my eye more on the speedometer than the road ahead. Enough.

Next Friday before I head out to Zuma I am calling the cops and requesting a police escort. If they are going to send me out there to be killed by furious motorists because I am obeying their speed laws, I expect them to protect me.
Roger Thornhill
Westlake Village