How’s My Driving?

Have you seen the bumper sticker “How’s My Driving?”

Commercial vehicles often have it on their back bumper, along with a phone number to report bad driving on the part of the company’s employees.

Many companies feel that the way their drivers behave on the road reflects their firm’s values.

They don’t want wild, inconsiderate, or negligent drivers operating a vehicle with the company’s logo splashed on the sides. It would send a negative message about how the company trains them.

Similarly, when we believers go about our daily lives, our behaviour reflects the One we belong to.

For better or worse, we reflect Christ.

Oftentimes, we don’t do a great job of this…

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The J-Turn

Image by Kahl Orr from Pixabay

I’ll bet that for many of us, car chases on TV shows or in films are a guilty pleasure.

There’s invariably a suspenseful moment where it looks like the bad guys have the heroes at their mercy: they’re coming at the protagonists head-on. The good guys are forced to throw their car into reverse to escape their pursuers.

It seems like the baddies have the upper hand, because our heroes are at the disadvantage of driving backwards.

But then comes the thrilling moment when the good guys make a 180-degree reverse turn, spin their car around, and peel off facing forwards without losing any speed. The bad guys are left in the dust.

Our heroes have just performed a “J-turn.”

This evasive driving technique is a staple of almost every action film with a car-chase scene. It was made famous in the old detective show “The Rockford Files,” in which it was Jim Rockford’s signature maneuver. The J-turn is also called the “reverse 180” or simply “The Rockford Turn.”

The master of J-turns in the Bible was none other than Jesus.

Although he never drove a car, Jesus was adept at rescuing people by suddenly reversing their situation.

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The Best Driving Tip of All

How NOT to park
Photo by Todd Dwyer on Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0

As a follow-up to last week’s post, “Life Lessons from Driving in Snow,” I thought I’d continue on the topic of driving and give you the best driving tip I’ve ever heard.

I learned this valuable piece of advice from watching the TV programme, “Canada’s Worst Driver.” There are various iterations of this show around the globe: perhaps your country has something similar. These “worst driver” shows are often hilarious but are also educational. You can learn a lot about how not to drive from atrocious drivers.

Before I present the best driving tip of all, here are some memorable examples of appalling driving as reported by driving instructors:

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Life Lessons from Driving in Snow

Oops! A pickup truck loses control in snowy conditions, colliding with a state trooper.
Photo by Washington State Department of Transportation on Flickr
CC BY NC-ND-2.0

Do you live in an area with a snowy climate? Then you’ll know the sheer joy of trying to drive during a heavy snowstorm.

The snowplow hasn’t come by yet, so for starters no one can see the lane markers. Cars start to slip and slide into the wrong lane. Drivers become less able to stop their vehicles in time at red lights, or to get up large hills. Cars might be stuck at the side of the road, wheels spinning fruitlessly. The number of car accidents skyrockets, and everyone is late for work.

It’s delightful, isn’t it?

But there are a few tricks to driving in snow, and they also apply to navigating through the difficulties of life.

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