Our Mazda 3 has this thingy called “DSC” or “Dynamic Stability Control”

I have made fun of this in the past, because what “DSC” seems to do is make a little picture of a skidding car light up on your dashboard. Since you’re already skidding at the time, it seemed like a “Dude! You’re out of control!” indicator.

Now I realize it is a “Dude! I’m saving your ass!” indicator.

I was on my way back from the JLPT in Seattle tonight, and, well, only a lunatic would have been driving. It was pouring rain and there’d been warnings of “hurricane force winds”, whatever that means. I think what it really means is “please watch the news and enjoy the many fine advertisements while you wait for the weather report.”

Between Seattle and Vancouver, the speed limit is 70. This was an insane speed. I had the cruise control at 61, which honestly might have been a little high, and I was sitting in the middle lane. It worked out pretty nicely; I was passing the people hauling trailers and such in the right lane, and anyone crazy enough to actually be doing the speed limit was blowing past me in the #3 lane. Even the real crazies were sticking to the speed limit – I present this as evidence of how lousy the weather was.

(Everyone calls these lanes the same things, right? #1 = slow lane, #2 = middle lane, #3 = passing lane?)

There were very very few cars out, because most people were sane enough not to be on the road.

I pass a guy in the right lane. Not paying too much attention to him, he’s in an F150 or something of similar size. About the only thing notable about him is that he has a very large bumper sticker, white letters on blue background. Stands out nicely when headlights hit it.

A couple minutes later, Mr. Bumper Sticker passes me. No worries, he wants to go faster than me. I’m happily fixed at 61.

He gets a little ways ahead and slows down. I motor past him again, still at 61. His headlights fade behind me and…

…he decides to go fast again and passes me.

At this point, I’m starting to get a bit nervous.

He passes me… gets a bit ahead, and drops speed again. I catch up to him and he accelerates just enough so we’re exactly parallel.

I look over to see if he’s trying to signal me or something, like maybe I have a tail light out. As best as I can tell, he’s looking straight ahead.

I’m trying to figure out what to do here, because neck and neck down the highway in the weather conditions is a bad bad idea, when Mother Nature decides to make up my mind for me. One of those “hurricane-force” gusts of wind hits and I feel my tires side into the semi ruts, which are full of water. I feel the lovely sensation of a car which has decided to try to be a boat.

I hit the breaks just enough to turn off the cruise control and the “Dude! I’m saving your ass!” indicator lights up.

I hear this really disturbing “whunk whunk whunk” sound, which I realize in retrospect was the ABS breaks doing their best. My little Mazda skids to the right, into Mr. Bumper Sticker’s lane, missing his back bumper by… well, let’s just say that it wasn’t until I was parked and could look at my front right bumper with a flashlight that I was SURE I’d missed him.

Somewhat shaken, I drop to 50 and let Mr. Bumper Sticker’s taillights fade into the distance. I wait until they are well out of view before I push the “Resume Acceleration” button and take it back up to 61.

Within minutes, I’m coming up on Mr. Bumper Sticker again. This time, I did what I should have done the first time he started his little passing dance… pushed it up to 70, joined the idiots in the #3 lane and stayed there until I was sure I could move back to the #2 lane and drop to 61.

In conclusion:

Do not make fun of your car when it is trying to do its best for you.

More about the JLPT once I’ve had some sleep.