This is NOT an Endorsement!


A day of light Houston traffic

The image above is of a casual Saturday morning in Houston, Texas. Light traffic on the highway a little before lunch. In no way were we dodging drivers who were finding ways to cut across multiple lanes of traffic to make last minute exits that they were warned about miles before! 

OK, perhaps the tone there is not fully appropriate with my current responsibilities, but I find humans both humorous and frustrating. We really are strange, often silly, creatures at times.

Stephanie and I are driving much more as missionaries than we were previously. About eighteen months ago, I struggled a bit with a decision on whether to stick with my Kia Sportage, which was a good car that I was quite happy with, or get a hybrid vehicle. I was not, and am still not, ready for an all-electric vehicle. But I decided that I was OK with the thought of a hybrid. So, I traded in my Kia for a Toyota RAV 4 hybrid. I am happy that I did, but I must emphasize I don't endorse products! So, this is not an endorsement!

But what a great decision that has turned out to be. On the drive from Raleigh to Houston, we averaged 40 miles per gallon. Since being in the city with mostly street and frontage road driving, we have been averaging 42 miles per gallon in our first few weeks. This past week, due to some longer trips on highways with a lot of slow-downs and lower speed limits, I averaged 45 mpg. And just to be clear, this is not an endorsement of any kind! 😉

Of course, this only happens because I am not as aggressive of a driver as many here in Houston. I could easily keep the vehicle in power mode all the time and make minimal use of the electric vehicle mode. But defensive driving is a must here and it is helpful in maximizing the mileage. I am continually grateful for the training that I received on my first job at Shell Offshore. We weren't allowed to rent cars on company business until we had taken and passed a defensive driving course. I have relied on it all through the years since. How helpful it has proven to be for me to adjust my mirrors to practically eliminate blind spots, to keep my eyes moving to ensure I had the big picture, to give myself an out and understand where that was, to make sure that others see me, and simply leaving extra space in front of and around me so I had time to react. 

No, it didn't prevent every accident. I couldn't do anything about the callow teenage driver that wasn't paying attention and rear-ended me several years ago. But I have avoided numerous other accidents, including recent ones where red lights are treated as mere suggestions and stop signs were either totally ignored or simply not seen. I have sometimes wondered if, after this life, we will be shown a movie of all of the near accidents that we were oblivious to so that we could see and understand just how often we were protected from our own and other people's stupid acts. I think if that were to happen, there are an awful lot of people that will be dumbfounded by what they are shown. And some of them will realize that the last one was just them being obstinate and the "Hey Bubba! Hold my beer and watch this!" choice was just one too many. 



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