Yep. Driving responsibly is a spiritual discipline. Christians should know their Highway Code well enough to drive safely, understand the rules and recognise and interpret the signs. They should also keep to the speed limit. Driving along a dual carriageway in a built up area, the Micra in front was doing exactly 29mph. The car was in the outside lane and had been for a distance. Truth to tell I wasn’t bothered as it was a rare sunny spring morning, blue sky, sun shining and Sheila and I with the day off, (Good Friday) on our way to one of our favourite coffee places. I too was on the outside lane cos I was bearing right at the next roundabout. And yes, I was getting a bit itchy at the slow progress.
Then this massive big black BMW came tanking up behind me till I could see the whites of the driver’s eyes, and feeling unreasonably pious, I moved to the inside, whereupon he bore down on the wee Micra lights flashing to scare its driver into the inside lane. But no. Steady as you go, at 29 mph the wee car tootled along – so big BMW with a surge of power and a Lewis Hamilton swerve, cut inside just ahead of me, passed on the inside of the unintimidated wee Micra, gunned the engine and took off – then slammed on the brakes. But too late. There, in the middle of the road, a hundred metres ahead, was the luminous yellow jacket and the raised hand of the nice local speed cops.
I’d like to deny the sin of gloating, but I can’t. I’d prefer to say I behaved in an emotionally mature way and didn’t shout ‘Oh yah beauty’. I’d also feel less embarrassed if I could report that I prayed for the driver of the BMW, that he might not lose his licence, that he would just see the error of his ways, Lord. But instead I have to confess that for years when someone has behaved like that I’ve lamented the absence of the polis just when you need them. So I have to confess to a culpable sense of personal uplift, a smug feeling for the justness and rightness of things, a quite unreasonable degree of self-righteousness; and as the wee Micra turned right into the Rouken Glen car park I wondered how many coffees you could buy with the standard speeding fine.
I need to learn to love other road users more!
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