IRREVERENT Magazine - Features

Last month I promised you a tale of greed,  corruption, and public indifference that would cause your hair to stand on end.  I was distracted at the time by my good buddy Kevin Trudeau's latest money-making scheme.  As luck would have it, we're now in October and there's no better time for a bone chilling tale of the kind of malfeasance and shenanigans that would put even Tom Delay to shame.  Supposing of course that he has any left.

Our tale unfolds on a dark and stormy night.  I was returning home after spending two glorious months traveling around these United States conducting focus groups on what you, the average American, want from this, the web's premier methane production facility.  My route took me through the great corn state, home of the good Captain Kirk, the place whose state fair is the best state fair, that's right boys and girls I was traveling through Iowa.  It was the witching hour as I passed over the Missouri River from Nebraska (state motto:  A great place to be from.) and noticed that some foul fiend had replaced all of the 65 mph speed limit signs with 70 mph speed limit signs.  The carnage was horrible, and I barely survived the journey through the state to the Mississippi River.  I would emerge a changed man.

Well, ok, not a changed man, after all my brain never stopped working to solve the mystery of the amazing changing speed limits.  In the clear light of day, after I had a chance to exchange the adrenaline charged shaking of a fear soaked journey with the single malt fueled spasms of delirium tremens, I began to see the issue much more clearly.  More specifically I began to see the money more clearly.  You see at 65 mph I could get all the way across Iowa on a tank of gas.  At 70, well I was forced to see a part of the country I never wish to see again:  Clinton, IA.*

As gallon after gallon of 10% ethanol -- that's right your car can have more booze in it than you can -- poured into my tank,  I realized that maybe I was wrong.  Maybe this wasn't such a horrid, scary thing.  Maybe Iowans were engaged in the single greatest show of support for George Bush since Democrats started voting for Patriot Acts.  Iowa was a red state in the election, it's one of those conservative little rural enclaves where all the women are beautiful, all the men are manly, and all the pigs are nervous. Clearly it didn't wish to embarrass the President by giving him no reason to make war in Iraq.  "Hell yeah," was the refrain, "Speed for God and Country.  I won't let my son's sacrifice in the National Guard be in vain!  Where's my yellow ribbon!"  A little misguided maybe, but at least they were committed.  Unfortunately, when I got back to the offices of R.A. Entrerprises, I found the snake in paradise.

After feeding several interns into the ever hungry maw that is the world wide web, I discovered that what was actually happening in Iowa was a little bit of highway robbery.  You see the Iowa legislature is pretty evenly split, in fact exactly split between the two parties.  Democrats can't easily raise more money, and Republicans can't easily cut more taxes.  You'd think this was a situation right up my alley.  While the government's too busy keeping themselves entertained politicking and negotiating, they're staying the hell out of my way while I make a little bit of quick moolah.  Unfortunately for Iowans, their legislators are much too smart to engage in partisan bickering.  Looking into a future of low revenue, counting up the number of SUV's plying the highways, and doing a quick cross check on the speed the citizens were actually driving, the highly trained lawmakers, who normally just do a smash and grab on the citizenry's wallets, discovered a way to make the poor bastards fuck themselves.  Imagine the debate:  "Whereas the average vehicle sees a twenty percent reduction in fuel efficiency when travelling 70 miles per hour instead of 65,  and whereas the average speed on Iowa's freeways is already 69.8 miles per hour, and whereas the average will quickly climb to 74.9 miles per hour meaning the sale of even more gasoline, and whereas the State of Iowa collects 20.5 cents for each gallon of gasoline sold:  be it resolved that we stick it to those dumb rubes too stupid to get a law degree and be elected to the statehouse.  Those in favor?"

But the legislators didn't leave anything to chance when they slipped this little stealth tax into the backs of their constituents.  They called out the heavy guns of the American Automobile Association of Minnesota and Iowa.  Just in case some smartiepants who thought that maybe, just maybe, at least one giant lobbying group would be on his side, he got his reality check and a heaping dose of spurious logic from an editorial on the AAA website.  In what can only be called a classic Scooby Doo moment, the kind the makes you say rrrrhuttttt?,  President Jeff Ogden wrote that it wasn't the speed that killed, it was the stopping.   Like when you're minding your own business, just trying to dial your cellphone, cruising down the highway at a calm and stable 80 miles an hour, and ram into the back of some fascist bastard earth hugger putting along at a mere 70 in his Prius.  Of course given the totalitarian tactics AAA has supported in the war on drinking and driving, I guess it's only natural we'd want to get home before the cops have a chance to put up the sobriety roadblocks.

Silent on the issue appear to be the insurance companies.  I suppose they feel a little conflicted.  On the one hand they want to be all for safety and driving rationally.  On the other, of course, is the exciting prospect of dozens of more claims to deny as motorists "fail to maintain control" of their vehicles, and all of the bonus premiums to collect as the accident rates begin to climb during the first winter under the new speed regime.  What's a hard working actuary to do, other than get a good profit induced stiffy over the whole thing.

Now if you all actually bothered to comment on our hard work around here, you'd probably say, "so what Mercer, you haven't given me much graft and corruption.  Once again you've tried and failed to turn me into a dessicated cynical old fart like yourself.  The people of Iowa wanted to drive faster and they'll pay for it.  The market in action, you free marketeer you."  Well fair enough.  But I'm going to leave you with just one more little factoid that fell out of the Google(tm) tree when I sent JoJo the Research Monkey to shake it.  The speed limit in Iowa was raised on July 1, 2005.  The same day, surely by coincidence, saw an increase in the state's tax on unblended gasoline.  And you call me cynical?

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*Site of the Iowa Air National Guard's favorite bombing range, Clinton, IA has been variously described as "The town an arsonist forgot." and "So ugly even the graffitti won't stick around."  Opinions other than the mayor's however are less harsh.  "This is what we were fighting for?" questions one cheerful billboard, sponsored by the local American Legion.

Rumor has it that this Mississippi River town has had it's name for years.  The suspiciously large number of dry cleaners and blue dresses, however, would seem to belie that assertion.