Motorway Madness

I wondered what happens when a driver with an unhinged mind and no reason to continue living gets behind the wheel. Lets assume it's an empty road on a new day.

Cruising in the centre lane with nothing in sight, Anderson swept beneath a monolithic overpass and gave the finger to an overhead speed restriction sign. He nudged the speed up to 90mph and thumbed off the music. Time to concentrate.

Training his eyes on the mid point of the lane he looked out to the middle distance, adjusting his grip on the cool leather wheel. He allowed his eyelids to close momentarily then flicker open, the car maintained an impressively steady course. With a subtle shift a GPS map refreshed itself on the bright LCD display, but Anderson didn’t notice.

Nothing ahead nothing behind now, he pushed the motor to an effortless 120mph, German technology maintaining the smooth ride. Suddenly he reached out and pressed a button on the dash then screwed his eyes tightly shut and listened to the wind sweeping over the car’s smooth lines. Keep going, no need to look yet. Don't open them, keep going. He started reciting the names of his childhood family over and over...

With a start he opened his eyes. The car was still flying ahead, straight as an arrow. He glanced at the statistics display screen and read “time elapsed 8 minutes 31 seconds.” Something told him he should do it today, his 100th birthday, and nobody left to care.

His first finger hovered over the touch-screen words ‘Lane Deviation Compensator - ON/OFF’, poised to press. And the digital clock read: 6:00am Sunday 19 September 2057.