THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF DRIVING

As has become my habit the last couple of months, I left church yesterday afternoon, and began the drive straight down Horseblock Road to my aunt's house, to take care of the daily chores there. As I came closer to the fireworks company, I noticed crime scene tape cordoning off a large area of the westbound side of the road. Vehicles were parked on the shoulder of my side of the road, and police cars were scattered over a very large area of the opposite side of the road...lights flashing!

Then I saw him...

A lone body lying in the middle of the roadway covered with a blanket.

I guess everyone was waiting for the coroner, because NO ONE was anywhere near the man who had just been killed, in what I later learned was a motorcycle-truck accident.

As the good sisters of Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament taught us so many years ago, whenever we see or hear police cars, fire trucks or sirens...

I began to pray and yes, even cry as I continued on my way.

I felt so sorry for whom I later learned was a young man, just lying there ALL ALONE, with NO ONE to hold his hand or comfort him as he passed from this world to the next.

I prayed for Saint Michael to lead him to our Father in heaven. I prayed that Christ would welcome him, even as He consoled the young man's family, as they too, begin a new way of being...without their loved one.

It makes me crazy the way people drive on Long Island. Like everything else in so many people's lives, driving has become more an exercise in ME and I, rather than in a safe mode of moving from Point A to Point B.

On June 17, 2007, the Vatican issued the Ten Commandments of Driving. Just as so many threw the Vatican out of the bedroom with Humanae Vitae...so many scoffed at the Vatican's joining us in the car each and every day.

If we could only learn to listen...how much easier, happier, and lengthy could life be?!?

I do not pretend to know how this fatal accident occurred. I did not witness the actual occurrence, I only saw the aftermath...the devastation.

I did not witness the crash that ultimately killed my brother in 1967, I only live the aftermath...the devastation.

As I taught my two boys how to drive, I reminded them, and still do to this day, that when they are behind the wheel of a car, they have freedom in their hands...in their hands as well, is a potential one-ton weapon of mass destruction...proceed cautiously.

I pray that YOU, too will realize that YOU have the power over life and death with EVERY action YOU take, when YOU are behind the wheel...or handlebars...of ANY vehicle!

Please Proceed Cautiously!


The Ten Commandments of Driving:

1. You shall not kill.

2. The road shall be for you a means of communion between people and not of mortal harm.

3. Courtesy, uprightness and prudence will help you deal with unforeseen events.

4. Be charitable and help your neighbor in need, especially victims of accidents.

5. Cars shall not be for you an expression of power and domination, and an occasion of sin.

6. Charitably convince the young and not so young not to drive when they are not in a fitting condition to do so.

7. Support the families of accident victims.

8. Bring guilty motorists and their victims together, at the appropriate time, so that they can undergo the liberating experience of forgiveness.

9. On the road, protect the more vulnerable party.

10. Feel responsible toward others.

In loving memory of Joseph L. Malack ~ May 8, 1948 - January 16, 1967 ~