You’re off on a fall family drive. The sun is shining, the foliage is bursting and the kids are backseat-singing. They’ve got apples and pumpkins on their minds.

And you? You’ve got the crew cruising in the left lane at 75 mph, watching as the slower drivers move to the right to get out of your way.

The posted maximum speed limit is 65. Are you committing a sin?

It’s a question few of us pause to consider. Driving well above the speed limit, disrupting the proper driving patterns of others and putting yourself and your loved ones at unnecessary risk in the car are serious matters. Such actions can even have fatal consequences.

And then there’s “the other guy.” You may be careful and the best driver in the world, but what about the motorist ahead of you? Or the one cutting in on you suddenly? Are you leaving enough room in case someone has a blowout?

Do you let anger overcome you and go speeding off to do unto another driver what that inconsiderate weaver did to you? Be honest. It can happen to the best of us.

Father Bob Lombardo, a Friar of the Renewal whose calm demeanor and kind words have helped countless homeless individuals and families during his inner-city ministry, admits that he sometimes reverts to his old secular self when a driver cuts him off or beats him to a toll booth. At those times he’s not the Father Lombardo everyone knows, he says. He must say a Hail Mary for patience — slowly.

Many of us spend an hour a day or more in the car, and the stress and speed can at times bring out the worst in us. We all know the dangers and we think we calculate the risks, but do we ever consider that, sometimes, our driving habits may be sinful? Do we ever think about a theology of driving? Consider what the Church has to say.

Many “think little of certain norms of social life, for example those designed for the protection of health, or laws establishing speed limits; they do not even advert to the fact that by such indifference they imperil their own life and that of others.” These words are from the Second Vatican Council’s pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes (On the Church in the Modern World).

The Catechism states, in a section on moral culpability: “An action can be indirectly voluntary when it results from negligence regarding something one should have known or done; for example, an accident arising from ignorance of traffic laws” (No. 1736).

In a section on respecting the dignity of the human person, the Catechism teaches, “The virtue of temperance disposes us to avoid every kind of excess: the abuse of food, alcohol, tobacco, or medicine. Those incur grave guilt who, by drunkenness or a love of speed, endanger their own and others’ safety on the road, at sea, or in the air” (No. 2290).

Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil, archbishop of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church in southern India, recently went so far as to issue a pastoral letter to Indian Catholics about driving safety. He called driving under the influence of alcohol a “sin against self and others.”

The fact is that every time we turn the ignition key, we are embarking on a moral endeavor that involves life and death.

“As part of contributing to the common good, we all have the obligation to observe just civil laws,” says Msgr. William Smith, professor of moral theology at St. Joseph Seminary in Yonkers, N.Y. “If you look at the statistics, you can see that driving above a certain limit increases the chance of accidents and fatal accidents, so there is a serious obligation to drive within reasonable limits. Otherwise, you’re taking a risk that no one has the right to take.”

A few statistics may help us take the issue more seriously. In August, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported more traffic fatalities last year than in any year since 1990. A total of 43,443 persons were killed in vehicular accidents in 2005, a 1.4% increase from the previous year.

Motorcycle fatalities rose for the eighth straight year, and nearly half of those killed were not wearing helmets. Among those killed in passenger cars, 55% were not wearing seat belts.

Each year, the death toll on the roads exceeds 40,000 people. If any other activity had such a consistently high death rate year after year, we would hear calls to ban it. Congress would pass laws to curtail or regulate it.

No one is seeking to ban driving, but, in fact, there are laws and countless regulations. We see them at every speed-limit sign, traffic light and reflected in the monotonous repetition of a white, broken line. We need to pass a test and earn a license to get behind the wheel.

Some of us, as we grow older, at times revert to the inner teenager with his first set of wheels. “How dare anyone get in my way, tell me how to drive or to slow down,” we think — until we hear the dreaded siren and see the red light flashing in the rearview mirror.

Driving is all about the good life, until we see ambulances and fire engines at a fatal accident. We slow down for as long as the traffic ties us up, rubberneck as we pass the crash site and proceed moderately for about a quarter mile. Then we speed up when the accident is out of sight.

The greatest driving lesson I ever received was when I was in the passenger seat of a friend’s car. He was an automotive expert. He could take apart a car piece by piece and put it back together again. He raced at local tracks on weekends. As we went through New York’s rush hour traffic, he exhibited the calm and skill of a professional driver.

When another car cut him off, I thought I would see my friend exhibit some racetrack tactics. To my surprise, he slowed down and showed no emotion as the offender blew exhaust at his windshield. “I won’t let an amateur keep me from racing another day,” my friend said. “I don’t take risks on the road.”

Get There With Prayer

Wise man, my friend.

What can Catholic drivers do to help make our highways and byways a little less dangerous and a little more respectful of the dignity of the human person? Here are some practical suggestions:

National Catholic Register

Sept. 17-23, 2006

— Say a prayer upon entering the car. Our family recites a Hail Mary, followed by brief petitions for the protection of Our Lady of the Highways and St. Christopher, patron of travelers.

— Hang a set of rosary beads from the rearview mirror. Don’t view it as a good-luck charm, but rather as a prayerful reminder of God’s protection and providence. Just as God put into place the history of salvation that is told through the mysteries of the Rosary, so he will watch over you and your family. Rosary beads on the mirror can also be a witness of faith to other drivers.

— Pray the Rosary in the car. On my way to work each morning, I pray one decade of the Rosary, using my fingers as the beads. I call it my “hands-free” cell phone to God. (Holding beads or even a rosary ring compromises my hold on the steering wheel.) Whenever my wife and I are in the car together, we pray the Rosary, a practice that is also a good teaching moment for our young children.

— Join the Sacred Heart Auto League. Founded in 1955, the organization, based in Wallis, Miss., promotes “prayerful and careful driving.” You can sign up online (shl.org) and receive a Sacred Heart visor clip, with an image of Jesus that will remind you to drive safely for your sake and the sake of others.

Happy — and holy — motoring!