Driving is defined in three parts: skill, strategy, and art.

Making turns without over-/under-steering is skill. Turning well enough to avoid feeling G forces attack your passengers is skill. Braking softly enough so that you don’t feel the thud of the stop is skill.

Always looking for the next possible open space to pass is strategy. Being stuck at a red light behind two cars in two lanes and picking to follow the newer one is strategy (the assumption is that if both cars are equally slow, the newer model is always more powerful, UNLESS the older model vehicle is a higher-class brand; click here for a detailed explanation). Baiting fast cars in case there are cops is strategy (you may not win the race, but at least you won’t be slapped with fines and points; expect a post about this in the near future).

Gracefully cruising at 160km/h or more in an open stretch of road is art (kinda like in commercials). Shredding that perfect “drift” in snow in an empty parking lot on a beautiful Canadian winter day/night is art. Pulling out into the oncoming lane to pass and feeling your heart race as your tachometer redlines is art. I love driving, I’ve always wanted to drive ever since I was a toddler.

But I don’t race, period. Well, not directly anyway…my constant goal is to avoid being passed (and I rarely do, unless I’m purposefully driving slow), and I put the pedal to the metal to achieve that goal if there’s competition. However, I never look the driver in the eye or do anything to acknowledge that a race has been initiated. Because street racing is BAD. But two drivers pushing their vehicles to the limit for completely individual reasons (and just happen to be doing it together at the same time) is perfectly acceptable.

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Driving and drivers are, in my opinion, highly symbolic of present issues of society, politics, and occasionally even religion. The way in which one operates a vehicle, the attitude in which one conducts himself while behind the wheel, is a reflection of how one exists in normal everyday life. Could you reasonably expect someone who drives slowly on the fast lane to exemplify logic when he defends his political beliefs (or would he even be acute enough to form political beliefs)? Probably not. Driving may be my passion, but society and politics are my life, and whether one appreciates it or not it is their life, too.

As Angry Chinese Driver has steadily grown in readership and also in the maturity of its content (well, I try…but I like to throw in a mindless post or an angry strictly-driving related post here and there for fun), I encourage viewers to connect simple stories of a leadfoot teenager behind the wheel to the greater matters that dictate our social, physical, and economic well-being in reality.

On a two-lane road in beautiful Prince Edward Island.

Angry Chinese Driver proudly writes from the Greater Toronto Area.