Each city, each part of the country is going to have different expectations for what driving should look like. Nashville really is not that bad, but I suggest we put aside our partisan differences and generate some policies that will move us forward together as a country.

First of all: cell phones. I actually have no problem with people driving while on cell phones if you know it doesn't affect your driving, which is just not possible. In fact, I feel rather strongly that texting while driving is considerably safer than talking because you can take breaks to steal glances at the road, instead of having steadily divided attention.

The second safety precaution, obviously, is to prohibit female drivers. There is an old, never-repealed Tennessee law decreeing that if a female did drive an automobile, there had to be at least two men walking outside the vehicle, waving red flags to alert other drivers of the danger. Seriously, look it up. Now those were some politicians who knew how to protect and serve the citizens.

Now the third general principle, which I was certain everyone was aware of until recently driving through Georgia, is to drive on the right, pass on the left. “Passing on the left” does not mean idling along about three miles under the speed limit, at the same rate as the truck in the right lane.

Outside these principles, there are some guidelines: As someone from the Northeast, I'd love to see people in Nashville adopt a little bit more liberal approach to horn use. I don't believe this includes blasting your horn after someone cruises through a freshly red light. They're gone. And they know what they did. All you've accomplished is freaking out the safe drivers around you. And drivers do freak out in response to a horn, but this could be modified through a gradual, light introduction of the horn, For example, in scenarios such as when the light has turned green or when you're about to simultaneously cut someone off while flipping them the bird.

This brings us to our next topic: car decorations. There are basically two groups of people here — one who believes a car is a means of transportation and the other who believes it is a vital extension of his or her identity and will make or break his or her success in life. The latter may use bumper stickers, window stickers, vanity plates and bring up his car in conversation when no one there has expressed any interest in driving somewhere. Among the decorators, there are two particularly frustrating sub-groups. We have the political soapbox decorator who can best express his ideals by pasting them all over his car in catchy phrases. These may be mixed in with stickers for political candidates who lost several years ago. After all, studies have shown that 60 percent of voters make their decision based on how often they see a candidate’s sign on other people's cars or yards. The second is the fake baseball stuck in the window. What is this!? What are you trying to say here — that you park dangerously close to ballparks? Isn't your rear vision continually obstructed? It's not funny or clever or even logical. You just have a fake baseball on your rear windshield.

 Justin Poythress is a senior in Peabody College. He can be reached at j.poythress@vanderbilt.edu.