On Driving: Angels and Strangers.

I spend what feels like a lot of time driving the car. It may take me an hour or more to get to work, to church, to a party or an entertainment. This probably isn’t any longer than it takes most people, I know. Although driving is a skilled occupation, something about it doesn’t engage the whole mind, as perhaps it should. So what happens to the driving time?

            The time management issue arises when someone cuts you off rushing to be at the next red light before you. I’ve noted that all traffic appears to be slower on a Friday — odd, that, you’d think it would be faster, as people gallop home for the weekend — although it seems to be quicker and less complex than public transport. But driving does count as a waste of human time and the earth’s resources. And it carries its own decisions. How do you dress for driving? Not in the dust veils motorists once needed, but I’d prefer to avoid tight skirts or high heels for an hour behind the wheel.

            Some have pleasant experiences driving: the exhilaration of moving freely down country highways; the sense of independence and agency as I get myself from A to B all by myself after a period of illness when I couldn’t even get myself out of bed; the personal concert the radio or car music player will give a variety of folk with a real variety show of musical tastes: Brandenburgs to keep me awake (slow music hypnotises and the music for a massage will put you to sleep); heavy metal for the church organist; Broadway musicals for the lawyer; trumpet voluntaries for the carpenter; Eurovision for the priest. But in spite of this valuable listening time, a glance at one’s fellow commuters demonstrates all too clearly the charm and delight they find in their daily travel.

            Some of these joys are mechanical, such as driving with a flopping or scratching noise somewhere beneath the car. But more are caused by our own irritation at having to deal with so many companions on the road, with pushy elbows and blurting horns, with the risks posed by vertiginous pedestrians and other road hazards, including but not limited to cranes high in the air swinging over building sites enclosed in barricades and warnings.

            Does driving find out our failings? Do we have to be first at the light? What about our need to know what’s going on when traffic stops for ages, and we’re blocked by a matron in the civilian equivalent of an armoured personnel carrier from finding anything out? Is the need to engage with strangers getting on our nerves?

            Driving is a state of transition, a friend once said. As a widowed person, I’m in a permanent state of transition in any case, transition to an unknown destination. Would it be more relaxing or interesting driving around with company, or not? True enough, I might not trust another person’s driving, even in a taxi. The expressions ‘driving you crazy’ or ‘driving you wild’ may be sometimes accurate descriptions of what goes on behind the wheel, whereas ‘driving you peaceful’ never seems to come to pass.

            Driving is training for life, I think. It has constant change, moments of aggression, flickers of sweet acknowledgement, blockades, road works, delicate individuals in exposed positions, delays, surveillances, anxieties and rests. So our guardian angels are kept busy, as the only prayers we can offer while driving lie in our consideration and care for our neighbours on the road. And this is enough.