Please be patient

I am old enough to remember a time when kids had to learn to drive with everyone around them blissfully unaware that their life was in danger.

It was a simpler time when “road rage” incidents made the local news and didn’t have their own category on YouTube. We learned to drive and taught our children to drive depending on the fragile grace others might extend to us while often receiving one finger salutes and aggressive horn blowing. It was all just part of the experience.

But nowadays, we’re in our peak car magnet era. Variations of “Please be patient, new driver” magnets are ubiquitous, and I’m beginning to suspect there are some people using them who are not, in fact, new drivers.

Three months ago, I graduated from the “teaching my kids to drive” phase of life. Yes, thank you, it is truly one of life’s great rewards. All three of my offspring successfully achieved the milestone and are licensed to drive. But even I have been tempted to affix a “be patient” magnet to my car for my commutes.

I have not conducted a scientific study, but my finely honed powers of observation, not to mention my mathematical acumen, has led me to conclude that there are 9.8 billion drivers in the greater Lilburn, Ga., metropolitan statistical area, and at least 7.8 billion have “be patient” magnets on their cars.

It’s like that new word you hear once and then suddenly you hear a dozen times in a week. I began noticing the explosion of these magnets about three or four years ago, and now I can’t unsee them.

At first I would sneer, “Oh, you think you’re entitled to more patience than everyone else, huh?” But then I felt guilty. Maybe they are in need of a greater portion of patience. When I worked on a college campus, I saw a clever bumper sticker that said “Please don’t honk, I’m new at this.” It made me chuckle and broke through my jaded, hard shell exposing my soft underbelly of compassion.

This new emotion changed driving for me. I began to loosen my grip on the steering wheel, make more room between cars, let people pass or pull out, and, most importantly, forgive driving errors, even if the car didn’t have a new driver magnet.

The results have been nothing short of life changing.

I have lower blood pressure. I have fewer headaches. I am a kinder, gentler soul that my Darling Beloved cannot wait to see at the end of the day (OK, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but she has noticed I am more pleasant to be around.) I have even found myself thinking, “That person is not good at driving… I’ll bet they require extra patience because they are a new driver.”

The whole magnet trend took off between the time I taught my older two boys to drive and when I trained their youngest brother. I purchased a set of these magnets for my car because of an encounter with an angry driver behind us who leaned on the horn at a stoplight when Carlton failed to accelerate from 0 to 60 in 5.2 seconds.

Here’s the thing: these magnets work. People treated us differently when we had them on the car. We forgot to put the magnets on for a practice driving session one day, and when Carlton extended a little beyond the marker in the turn lane so that a car had to adjust its path to turn into the lane besides us, that driver chose to use their horn aggressively and share a rude hand gesture. It caused me to really think about extending grace to all who have the misfortune of driving in Atlanta. No wonder teenagers around here don’t want to get their driver’s license.

I believe there are more of these magnets in use today than 10 years ago, and, controversial opinion, I think it’s OK. People are in a worse mood today than 10 years ago. Road rage is real. People have zero patience for anyone anytime. The presumption is that people are trying to harm you. At the same time, people are more anxious than they have ever been, particularly teenagers. Driving has become the most dangerous activity in our lives, and all too often, there is a thin line between frustration and violence.

Not only am I for “new driver” magnets, I believe these reminders should be used by drivers of any age and should be shortened to just “Please be patient.” And why restrict them to cars? Let’s do lapel pins, buttons, jewelry or even forehead tattoos! I know I would treat someone differently with a face tattoo that said, “Please be patient.”

I’m sure there is some percentage of the millions of New South Essays readers who think, “Yeah, but kids these days are too soft. They need to toughen up and drive better.” And I would say to that percentage, “Yeah, but haven’t you ever done something behind the wheel that caused someone to respond in a less-than-friendly way?” I believe the Bible says, “He who has not cut someone off in traffic can blow the first horn” or something like that.

We all need a little grace out here, and patience isn’t too much to ask. Besides, we have space in our lives for signs requesting patience since all the “Be kind. Rewind.” stickers on videotapes at Blockbuster stores went away. And if you don’t know about Blockbuster or rewinding, you definitely need a “new driver” magnet.

Now, please excuse me, I need to go see if these magnets work on the passenger side dash for when my Darling Beloved is riding in the car with me.