Setting Limits (to our Independence)

Every car commercial teaches one thing. Freedom. Country roads, specifically, mean freedom.

Our road is marked at 45 miles per hour. The rural highways around our road are marked at 55 miles per hour. But were they built for it?

“Did you hear that car go by?” Dad asks.

I nod.

“Wow. Really moving.”

I nod.

Few obey set limits.

I google, “how are speed limits for rural highways determined?” I google, “why do rural highways have the highest speed limits?”

“Speed limits on County roads in Wisconsin are determined through a detailed process that considers various factors, including road conditions, traffic volume, accident history, and the surrounding environment.”

Open roads, curve, swerve, climb and slip under shade and sunlight.

Surrounding environment gives me the most pause. To which lives does 'environment' refer? The raccoon splayed open; the hawk that dips too low; the dog that follows a trail; the tree that bends across.

After the road is built engineers also consider the speed of 85% of drivers. Yet, they’re only passing through. If we’re unseen by the systems, why would the system teach the individuals to see us. Not fewer, just not noticed, obstacles. The other driver's foot presses lower as mine lifts up.

In this environment, the surrounding environment, whose freedom is worth considering. And which freedoms? To exist? Be safe? Or, simply get somewhere faster?

Answers first appear like science, logic, protocol that cite obstacles and risk. Any law, policy, system appears that way.

Some rules of the road are delineated directly on the blacktop. White lines. Yellow lines. Dotted and complete, on one side or the other, lines. Between these lines, I read, protection. Security. The majority simply need to feel comfortable, to believe they are free.

Except that I can’t shake that the decision is more about value. The sharpness of those lines rising up to meet me is blurred, red, bodies already beyond pain hovering near those yet to be imagined. Surrounding us is the reality that none of us matter enough, until there’s enough of us, first alive and then dead, to determine the right amount of pressure on the gas.