The Zen of Driving

I’m just back from a mini vacation with my family – a little time at the beach house of a friend. To get there, I had the startling yet satisfying experience of being chauffeured by my almost-age-of-majority son. He offered to take on the driving because the route includes a very long, very high suspension bridge and I must sheepishly admit that driving over that span makes me nervous. So it was a pleasure to sit back and leave the driving to him.

To tell the truth, I’m glad that my days as driver’s ed instructor are behind me. I eagerly awaited the chance to get my license when I turned 16, but the contrasts between my first driving experiences in the Midwest and those of my children as they learned to navigate the roads in a big East Coast city are too numerous to list.

I realized there was so much more I needed to show the kids beyond the mechanics of operating a car. The demands of safe, defensive driving require an awareness of self and others that goes unnoticed by veterans road warriors. I came up with a label for my personal brand of instruction. I called it The Zen of Driving.

The Zen of Driving begins with an awareness of where you (and the car) are, moment to moment, whenever you are in the vehicle. Even when the vehicle is not in motion. If the car is parked, how much room do you have to move it onto the road? Are there cars parked around you? How close are they? Are you on an incline? How much acceleration will you need to move forward? What barriers are in your way? Will you need to move backwards before you can move forward?

Once the car is in motion, you have to practice a second level of awareness, simultaneous with the first: Who and what is around you? What are they doing? Have they clearly signaled their intention to change direction? What if they don’t signal? Are there other signs or indicators that indicate a change may be coming? Maybe the car ahead on the right is slowly drifting to the left. Maybe you should prepare to get out of its way, whether its directional signals are blinking, or not.

And what about these pedestrians? Especially the ones with the cellphones are their ears (You KNOW what I’m talking about). They’re standing on the curb in the middle of the block, oblivious to the flow of traffic, ready to jaywalk and secure in the assumption that YOU will manage to stop for them.

And while you keep your awareness of where you are in the road (and the lane), you have to be thinking about where you want to be. Not simply where you want to go, but WHERE YOU WANT THE CAR TO BE. Example: when executing a left turn, you must know what you want to be in at the end of the process. Simply turning the steering wheel to the left may not be enough.

And we won’t even talk about the other variables beyond our control: road condition, weather, darkness, detours.

So by now, I’ve beaten my metaphorical point into the ground, right? The multiple calculations and corrections we make while driving mirror the many choices we are faced with in life. Experienced drivers make their choices on a subconscious level, but maintain the required awareness to get them where they need or want to go. In life, some choices require more intention in order to arrive safely at our destination.

Even with GPS.

Buckle up and be careful out there.