Fox News host Jeanine Pirro busted driving 119 miles per hour in upstate New York

[Not Ruth]

67. You have a point from a safety point of view, but in practice, 80mph in the right lane is considered

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/15/travel/driving-the-dazed-and-the-bored-on-i-5.html

There are no towns or cities on the main stretch of the Five, unless you count the small fast-food oases that materialize every 50 miles, and no historical sites to stop at. There aren't even any billboards. Trees are an exotic rarity, and the occasional distant dwellings are few and far between. The only notable landmarks are a vegetation-free section of the Tehachapi Mountains that is quickly left behind outside Los Angeles and an enormous cattle ranch in the middle of the desert that exudes a methane stench for miles. The radio segues into evangelistic stations and cellphone signals fizzle.

Mr. Troy usually relies on a collection of hip-hop and electronica CD's to keep him awake. Sometimes he also uses mental puzzles. ''It's an interesting tool,'' he said. ''I'll pose a problem -- a relationship problem or something at work -- and have hours to work it out.'' There is, at least, the luxury of unbroken time for thought.

Other commuters on the Five have their own routines. Some seek intellectual stimulation with audio books and language tapes. A few risk the companionship of strangers in need of rides whom they find through online bulletin boards like www.craigslist.com. Mr. Leibel brings a camera and snaps digital photographs of the road from behind the wheel; he now boasts a vast collection of pictures of odd freeway signs and the rear ends of trucks. Still, he finds the drive so hypnotic, he said, that he recently found he couldn't recall whether he was driving north or south.

Officially, the speed limit on Interstate 5 is 70 miles an hour: a driver who obeys the law will make it between the two big cities in less than six hours. But most, in their rush to get back to civilization, fly up and down the Five at speeds surpassing 90 miles an hour, weaving between lumbering trucks. The most reckless brag that they can make it from Los Angeles to San Francisco in four hours, less time and hassle than it would take to fly, if you count the trips to and from the airports and a lengthy check-in

''If you're in the fast lane you have to break the speed limit by at least 15 miles an hour if you want to keep up,'' said Kurt Noble, an Internet consultant who, after moving his family to San Francisco, found that the Five made it cheap and easy to maintain his business in Los Angeles. Mr. Noble has focused dark thoughts on truck drivers who slow down traffic. ''I'd imagine cruel contraptions, like a 12-foot device that could be hung down that would prevent trucks from moving into the fast lane,'' he said.

Between the trucks and the speed demons and the lack of visible highway patrol officers, I-5 can be a very dangerous highway. All along the road, you can see skid marks from quickly applied brakes and scorched grass from car fires. In the winter, thick fog often triggers huge pileups; in the summer, scorching temperatures cause overheated engines and blown tires, the remains of which litter the sides of the highway like rubber roadkill.

''It's really easy to go 100 without thinking about it; it's so flat, and so hot, you just space out,'' said Colette Sandstedt, a Los Angeles-based film student who drives home monthly to visit her friends and family in San Francisco. She has had two nightmare experiences in her old pickup truck on I-5 in the last year; first her engine caught fire; weeks later, she blew a tire.