In the 1950 Walt Disney cartoon Motor Mania, Goofy stars as Mr. Walker, a model citizen who treats everyone with respect. But once in his car, he becomes Mr. Wheeler, “a power-obsessed ‘uncontrollable monster’ who races other cars at stop lights and views the road as his own personal property.” Then, as soon as he steps out on the pavement, he once again becomes mild-mannered Mr. Walker.
In his 2008 book Traffic, author Tom Vanderbilt argues that too many drivers undergo similar transformations, descending through coarse driving into “road rage,” which is more a moral problem than a psychological disorder. Indeed, Vanderbilt suggests an alternative expression, “traffic tantrums,” which captures the raw childishness of aggressive driving.
Of course, traffic problems are almost as old as wheeled conveyance. It grew so bad in Rome that Caesar declared a daytime ban on carts and chariots “except to transport construction materials for the temples of the gods or for the great public works or to take away demolition materials.” And with each advance in transportation over the centuries, new opportunities for rudeness emerged.
For instance, the automobile offered new anonymity and insularity. “Unlike the bar in Cheers, traffic is a place where no one knows your name.” From within the climate-controlled armor of a car, a motorist cuts off another driver because he will likely never see that driver again, or he speeds through a neighborhood where he does not live. Eye contact, normally a strong feature of social cooperation, becomes untenable at speeds over 20 mph and is often blocked by sunglasses or tinted windows. When it does occur, it is usually more intrusive or menacing than collegial.
Today secular experts are beginning to realize what Scripture suggested all along – in every area of life, including driving, the heart determines one’s behavior. Insurance companies realize that irresponsibility in other areas of life transfers to the road – “A man drives as he lives.” Thus, auto insurance premiums are tied to such factors as credit scores and grades in school.
Bad driving also reflects on the character of nations, as New York, host city to the United Nations, has discovered. Between 1997 and 2002, diplomats who got the most tickets tended to represent countries deemed corrupt by Transparency International. In contrast, the countries whose diplomats received no tickets included some of those judged to be least corrupt—Sweden, Norway, Japan, and Denmark.
And then there is India: Rohit Baluja, founder of the nation’s Institute of Road Traffic Education, says that there “are nearly 110 million traffic violations per day in Delhi.” He recalls that when he returned from a trip to Europe, “it felt as if everybody here [was] stealing your right-of-way, and that nobody [understood] there [was] something called a right-of-way”; it was “anarchy on the roads.” Of course, Delhi has special problems, not the least of which are the cows reclining in the middle of streets, teeming with “forty-eight modes of transport,” including “zigzagging green-and-yellow auto-rickshaws, speeding cabs, weaving bicyclists, [and] slow-moving oxen-drawn carts.” But, at base, there is a spiritual problem. As Baluja explains, they have become so undisciplined in their driving that they do not even notice it any more.
Vanderbilt warns of viewing traffic as a non-human abstraction rather than a group of people. The Christian must go even further, for driving behavior reflects one’s attitude toward God. Instead of cursing roadway inconveniences, believers should show love to their fellow drivers, putting down their cell phones, going easy on their horns, and making way for reasonable merges. Furthermore, God commands obedience to the civil authorities who have established traffic laws. In sum, unholy driving not only imperils life and limb; it can kill the believer’s witness and hinder his walk with the Lord.
