Driving: My Way

For those of you who don’t know, Erin and I attend a wonderful church in Costa Mesa called Rock Harbor. Lately the teaching has been on having a heart like Christ. (Which is what most teaching is, I guess) And some examples given are how we drive. Is it important to be first? To move all the way over to the far right lane simply because there are no cars there only to have to make a left turn one block away. How do we treat the people on the road?

I found that lately I’ve been a lot better driver on the roads, and I haven’t been in such a rush to get places either. But I’ve found there’s one thing I’m still holding onto. I love to enforce my legal right of way! When I exit the freeway to come home there are two left turning lanes at the first traffic light. I like to choose the turning lane on the right. For those of you that aren’t California drivers, we have a law here that allows you to turn into any lane you want when turning onto a new street. Chaos, I know. Inevitably once in a while somebody in the left lane decides to change lanes during the turn, in which case he is about to hit my car. I then proceed happily to honk my horn and scowl disapprovingly at his decision to change lanes into me.

I don’t know why it is, but I look forward to those moments. I’ve looked at it many different ways: I have to take the left turn, I don’t want to be in the left-left turning lane because too many cars use it, I will always run into this situation so why don’t I just enjoy it? But I still feel a little guilty.

For the most part I’ve changed my driving habits. I don’t self-impose the speed limit on the tail-gating person behind me in the Carpool lane anymore, and I don’t speed to get ahead of somebody just to get to the off-ramp one car earlier. Now I sit and scoff at the ones who still are doing those things. Boy, have I got a lot to learn.