As a Pastor, I spend so much time in my vehicle, if I could write a country song just for Pastor’s, it would be, “Air Bag Angel”. I can’t count how many times my own celestial attendant has kept mine from deploying. Oh, not because of how I drive, but because of the Car-tastrophes that await me daily.

I am cognizant of scripture which tells us that every word that escapes our lips is written in Heaven’s Book of Life. But why must my heavenly aura be taxed by neanderthals behind the wheels of vehicles I meet each time I venture out?

In a span of five miles yesterday, three separate incidents tested my patience quotient. Pulling out of my church, a driver wouldn’t move up so I could make a right hand turn. It didn’t matter there was easily a full car length in front of her. All I needed was for her to move up one tiny foot. When I edged up to her bumper, all she did was look in her rear view mirror and belligerently sat there until the light finally changed.

Just one-quarter mile down the road, a driver whipped out in front of me and I had to slam on my brakes to avoid rear ending them. This was followed by a women who made a wide left to turn right. With her right blinker on, she then turned left. It was at this point that I wanted to pull my hair out. Except at my age coupled with my sparse out-cropping, I couldn’t risk the few strands I did possess.

Bad days behind the wheel are inevitable. A passenger in a taxi tapped the driver on the shoulder to ask him something.

The driver screamed, lost control of the cab, nearly hit a bus, drove up over the curb and stopped just inches from a large plate glass window.

For a few moments everything was silent in the cab, then the driver said, “Please, don’t ever do that again. You scared the daylights out of me.”

The passenger, who was also frightened, apologized and said he didn’t realize that a tap on the shoulder could frighten him so much, to which the driver replied, “I’m sorry, it’s really not your fault at all. Today is my first day driving a cab, I have been driving a hearse for the last 25 years.

As the story goes, I’m confident that each one of my readers could offer their own horror stories of incompetent drivers. It doesn’t have to be the three Q-Tips (what the younger generation calls residents there) driving side by side doing 30 in a 55 either. If you want that test, move to Boca Raton.