The one thing I miss the most while I'm at college is driving. I don't have a car up in Utah, so I must rely on the mercy of those more fortunate than I, and for the most part I'm fine with that. I don't have to worry about parking or gas (both HUGE hassles in Provo), and yet I had awesome roommates who would come pick me up from work on Sunday nights if it was too cold, or too dark, or they couldn't wait for me to get home so we could eat dinner together. Nevertheless, I sometimes missed driving for short amounts of time. So I was thrilled when I found out we were planning on switching off drivers on the way down: I could get back into the feel of driving without making a fool of myself in front of my relatively newly driving sister and always impressed brother.

I guess I had lost a little of my aggressive edge from my absence behind the wheel because on the first day back when I was driving my siblings to school, it was obviously rush hour and I was letting a lot of possible tight squeezes to merge into traffic go by so I could be confident going. My sister was getting super frustrated, telling me that if I basically just pulled out in front of someone they would have no choice but to let me in. It was at that point that I didn't wonder why she has already gotten into a crash with her license. but don't tell her I said that: she hates when I say anything about her driving, let alone anything bad. Well every time I get behind the wheel now, I'm trying to work on my speeding. I used to be quite the speedster ( I guess I could still be sometimes) but I want to follow the law and the speed limit as much as possible now. They do have it posted for a reason! So I was driving my siblings to school on yesterday and we were running a little late. My sister was upset she had let me drive (even though she doesn't drive when I'm in the car whenever possible and I don't think, after the experience I had on friday, I'll let her. She decided while driving was the best time to put on mascara: it wasn't even while we were stopped, it was while we were driving. She justified it saying we were driving straight, so there wasn't a lot that could go wrong with that.) because she has noticed I don't go 10-15 over on the way to school and she still had to put make-up on at school before class started. That got me a little upset because I am a better driver than her to begin with and if I want to weave through traffic and get there fast, I can. I was only a minute later than my goal!

Speaking of non-speeders though, my mom is pretty much the perfect example. She likes driving under the speed limit, which I can respect most of the time (I don't normally have a choice since I'm sitting in the passenger seat). There are times however when she takes it way out of proportion: she wanted to look at something on the side of the road, but didn't remember exactly when it was coming up, so she drove 25 mph for at least half a mile on a road who's speed limit was 40. I thought for sure we were going to get rear ended! Luckily we didn't, but as I watched in the side mirror, we definitely could have by more than one car.

Which goes to show how much of a surround driver I feel I am. I drive so that I don't run into the cars in front of me, which is exactly what you are supposed to do. But I also drive so that the cars behind me don't get annoyed or come too close to running into me. I know that's their job, but if I let them know what I'm going to do and then predict what they are going to do, I can react to them if they get too close to shattering my safety bubble. I also keep track of the cars behind and to the side of me so that if they start driving in my blind spot I will remember to check there before I change lanes. :) I don't know if other people drive like that, but I try and keep track of everything around me while I drive so I can keep as safe as possible.