Jim Taylor's Soft Edges

Wednesday June 27, 2007

When the Vatican issued its Ten Commandments for Motorists a couple of weeks ago, I approached them with some scepticism. Cardinal Renato Martino's explanation that cars could be "an occasion for sin" initially suggested that his main concern might be hormone-happy teenagers.
        On closer examination, though, the Vatican has done us all a favor. Its Ten Commandments recognize that a car is more than just a means of moving us from place to place, like a personal bus.
        The first commandment was predictable: "You shall not kill."
        The second commandment really intrigued me: "The road shall be for you a means of communication between people..."
        I had not previously thought of driving itself as a form of communication. But indeed, driving reveals a lot about how we relate to other people.

Self-disclosure
        The document (from the Vatican's Office for Migrants and Itinerant People) reminds us that cars can bring out "primitive" behaviour in people, including "impoliteness, rude gestures, cursing, blasphemy, loss of sense of responsibility, and deliberate infringement of the highway code."
        Yes, indeed.
        Now that summer is officially here and daytime temperatures soar towards spontaneous combustion, I notice a lot more of those "sins" on the road.
        I attribute that to the fact that people drive around with their windows open in summer. So behaviour that might in colder months have remained hidden behind closed windows is now played out to the public.
        The last time I drove into Kelowna, a driver yelled something I didn't catch because of the boom-boom of his sound system. But I'm sure it was intended for me, because he pointed. With his middle finger.
        Another bellowed, "Why don'cha get that old heap off the road!"
        Granted, my car is over 20 years old. But it's a Jaguar. And even old Jaguars – perhaps especially old Jaguars – are things of beauty, a marvellous synthesis of engineering and styling.
        So what if it drips oil? So what if its electrical system is as unpredictable as Robin Williams on a caffeine overdose? It's a classic!

Valued virtues
        The rest of the Vatican's commandments for motorists were mostly an expansion of the first two. They urged such virtues as courtesy, charity, and prudence – by no coincidence, qualities like those St. Paul urged new Christians to adopt, 1950 years ago. And the same qualities most parents today try to impart to their children.
        Which confirms, I suppose, that driving is not distinct from ordinary life, but an extension of it.
        One of Marshall McLuhan's aphorisms described the wheel as an extension of the foot. That is, it enhances the job that the foot does – it grips the ground, it enables its owner to move over the ground, but more efficiently.
        Perhaps the car is an extension of the driver.
        The Vatican's fifth commandment states: "Cars shall not be an expression of power and domination..."
        Which is exactly how many people use their cars.
        And probably also how they treat people around them. If they display courtesy in their driving, they probably also display it in the relationships with other people. If they drive with contempt for everyone else on the road, they probably – well, you get the picture.
        When I see how some people drive, I have little desire to meet them in person.

Jim Taylor