If you are generally patient, cautious, courteous, considerate, self-disciplined, non-compromising, or law-abiding, it will certainly show when you always use your vehicle’s turn signals as communication tools; or when you are driving behind a student driver who has just missed an exit; or when you are on a one-lane road behind a sputtering beater; or when you respect the yellow light as much as you respect the red light, especially when there’s a lot of traffic; or when you approach a vehicle emblazoned Little Princess on Board in hot pink; or when you actually stop at the Four-Way Stop next to your house, especially when there’s little traffic; or when you strive to adhere to the different speed limits of the different road types you traverse; or when you routinely take care of your car and strive to follow all the rules of the road.
Driving reflects on your character.
You and others around you ought to like what’s in your reflection.
And just like a mirror reflection of yourself is often your best motivational aid when trying to look more beautiful or handsome, ornate or dapper; the reflection of your character through driving can be one of the most practical motivational aids to enhancing your character.
Patience
We are all prone to being unreasonably impatient. When we overspeed, it’s often because we are being impatient for absolutely no good or logical reason.
The National Safety Council Defensive Driving Course Online teaches that overspeeding actually has very little impact on your ETA. Where it actually has a huge impact is on your risk for an accident. For every 10 miles per hour over 50 miles per hour, the risk of death in a traffic collision doubles. Impatience, particularly as expressed through overspending, is unreasonable and avoidably injurious.
Your neighborhood’s 25 MPH limit is more than 8 times faster than the average walking speed. The more common 45 MPH speed limit is more than seven times faster than the average jogging speed. And the Interstate’s 75 MPH limit is more than four times faster than the fastest buggies one could encounter in the Amish communities of Maine.
The posted speed limit is fast enough already!
Don’t be impatient with someone driving at the minimum (instead of the maximum) speed on the highway.
You have it so good already when you have a car!
Keep that perspective and it will drive your conduct in other areas of your life and spare you some of the costly mishaps of impatience.
Non-compromising and Law-abiding
Overspeeding is not only an unreasonable and often harmful expression of impatience—which, in turn, tends to feed our impatience—it is compromise. And it leads you down the slippery slope of law-breaking.
The average person is so horrible at persuasion that they have never persuaded themselves that they’ll only compromise just a little bit, and just once and never again; only 1 mile per hour above the speed limit, and just once and never again.
As with a lot of things, the key to not constantly compromise and to not getting hooked on a bad habit is to not even do the thing; to never cross the line.
But in the unfortunate event that you do cross that line, realize that you’ll just have to work extra hard to turn things around. That’s true with a lot of things in life.
Realize also that law-breaking remains law-breaking whether or not we get a speeding ticket. Don’t be the person who would rather be guilty than to feel guilty. Because guilt begins when you overspeed, not when your heart sinks after seeing red and blue lights flashing behind you. Don’t be the deluded person who has always known that wrong is wrong, but has now convinced themselves that wrong is not as wrong as it was made out to be. Convinced that wrong is not as wrong as it was made out to be perhaps because they don’t always immediately see cause-and-effect fully running its course in their lives or in other people’s lives.
Use driving to learn shun the wrong kind of compromise in your life and to become a law-abiding citizen.
Being Cautious
Exercising caution certainly can be weakness, excessive fear, or lacking skill. But not always. Often, it’s wisdom. It’s defensive driving. It’s taking preventative measures. It’s often understanding that the weather is not perfect; the roads are not perfect; tires are not perfect; brakes are not perfect; other drivers are not perfect. It’s understanding that you are not perfect. It’s understanding that it’s better to be safe than sorry. It’s understanding that safety doesn’t happen by accident.
With driving’s inherent need for caution, and with all the caution signs of the roads constantly demanding our attention, driving is a great, practical way to learn to be more cautious.
Courteousness and Being Considerate
Once, I was annoyed by how the driver in front of me was driving. It turned out that we both were headed to the same place. Though he got to that destination first, I was the first one to disembark. It wasn’t difficult for me to figure out why he took longer to disembark: he had a prosthetic limb. It also wasn’t difficult for me to make a connection between his prosthetic limb and his driving. Or the little bit of his driving that I, ashamedly, allowed myself to annoy me.
Every driver has or has had shortcomings. Every driver has been a first-time driver once. Not everyone shares your strengths, so be tolerant. Not everyone shares your weaknesses either, so don’t demand tolerance.
Find as many things on the road as you can that can help you become more considerate and courteous. Even “little” things like using your turn signals to communicate to those around you.
Be considerate. Be courteous.
Self-discipline
Driving demands self-discipline, and it therefore is an excellent way to learn self-discipline in general.
Life is not always easy. Religion teaches us that we naturally tend to be hostile to law in general. Science teaches us that there is, in the words of James R. Newman, a “general trend of the universe toward death and disorder”—called entropy. Common sense and the school of hard knocks teach that old habit die hard.
Let driving reach you to become more self-disciplined. The good things in life always require extra work and sacrifice, which are synonymous with self-discipline.
Your character can enhance your driving in the same way your driving can enhance your character.
Depending on how driven you are, driving can help you become a better person!
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