Okay, so whenever I drive and I’m hitting a yellow light like I’m going across the intersection and the light turn yellow, I hit the top, the roof of my car, just for like a symbol of good luck. I originally learned it from one of my friends from the Midwest and I think it’s like, I think it’s more of like a Midwestern thing, but I kind of adopted it as my own and we like all punch the roof of our cars for good luck just to hope like we don’t get caught and we like pass the signal. No cops catch us, but yeah.

Context: The informant is from San Diego, but learned this good luck ritual from friends who are from Texas and Kansas.

Analysis: The punching of the roof is to ensure that the driver does not get into an accident or that anything bad happens to them while they are running the yellow light. Since running a yellow light is not actually illegal, choosing to speed up instead of slowing down is deliberate, and the punching of the roof could be to reverse any karma coming from violating the yellow light.