This exercise will have to be repeated many times a day until you feel completely deprogrammed. It will take a while but it's worth it. I would even suggest you print out these sentences and stick them on your dash. This will gradually get you to slow down, be more courteous and less frustrated at the wheel. And one day, you may even reach the nirvana of driving. You will know that you have reached this stage when you realize that you have nothing to prove to the other drivers on the road. And as you will then find out, the benefits will be numerous.
1: You will stick out of the crowd with your good driving;
2: You will save lives because slowing down reduces your chances of being in, or of provoking, an accident;
3: You will be less stressed out and therefore in better psychological and physical health;
4: You will save a lot of money: Just think about the amount of money you will save on speeding tickets, gas, maintenance, repairs, or when buying the 4-cylinder version instead of the 6 or 8-cylinder one.
(WARNING: TO READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE, YOU MUST HAVE REACHED A SUFFICIENT STATE OF DEPROGRAMMING AND CALM. IF IN DOUBT, PLEASE ASK YOUR FAVOURITE SHRINK, PHYSICIAN OR MECHANIC)
If you are reading this, you have started to feel calm enough. So, you now know that you don't need that many horsepower; that the speed limit is 100 km/hr in Canada; that you don't need to turn on 2 wheels and that it can be dangerous. To make sure that this is perfectly clear, let me tell you 2 stories.
I used to own a 1986 Porsche at a time when I was still programmed. This car that helped me lose my driver's license a few times sported a 220-horsepower engine and was very fast. Yet, since then, the number of horsepower has never stopped to increase in all types of vehicles so that 220-horsepower is now considered an average amount of power. As if 10 or 15 years ago, the cars we were driving were not powerful enough....
The other story comes from a girl I used to go out with 3 years ago. One day, she told me she was interested in buying a motorcycle and wanted me to go shopping with her to the different dealers. While we were looking at the models, she told me what she wanted, her tastes and requirements. One of them surprised me to say the least. She said to me that since it was her first motorcycle, she should be reasonable and get herself a small model of around... 900cc! Flabbergasted, I couldn't help but tell her this size seemed to be quite big for a lack of experience or weight (at 1m60, 50kg, she was not exactly a large person). All she could come up with was that since the trend was leaning towards bigger bikes, she was afraid she would look ridiculous on a 500cc model, adding that she thought it wouldn't be powerful enough. "Not powerful enough for what?" said I. That's when I started to understand why so many young riders kill themselves on these 2-wheeled missiles. And to think of my 2 older cousins that had bought themselves the big Japanese model of the 60s when they got themselves a Honda 350cc...
So, all this goes to say is that since most car specialists do not seem to realize how important is the horsepower war between car manufacturers, they can hardly help the average buyer, from a safety or environmental standpoint, when the time comes to purchase a new or used vehicle.