Tag Archives: driving

Good Luck Ritual in a Car

Age: 38
Hometown: Menlo Park, CA
Location: In a car

Context:
My mom has done this ritual for as long as I can remember. She does it whether she is the one driving or sitting in the passenger seat. She doesn’t remember exactly who taught her this but she remembers it was a popular thing to do when she was a kid in the 90s.

Content:
Interviewer: “Why do you always tap the dashboard when we’re in the car?”

Interviewee: “So when I was younger, my friend taught me to tap the dashboard twice then the top of the roof then the dash again whenever you see a [car driving by with] one headlight because it’s for good luck.

Interviewer: “Have you always done that? Where did you get that ritual from?”

Interviewee: “When we were kids we did it and I always have.”

Analysis:
This example is a representation of folk ritual which is rooted in superstition. The tapping sequence on the dashboard and roof shows how people rely on repetition and consistency to feel like they’re doing something right in order to get good luck. This habit seems to have started as something that people thought more about, but over time it becomes automatic. Overall, this example highlights a greater human tendency to search for good luck and fortune in places where it might not logically exist, such as a car.

Driving good luck charm

Text: One of my classmates in my discussion section told me about a tradition she follows while she drives, in which when one of her headlights go out, she taps on the ceiling and center console once for good luck. She recounted that this was an action she saw her mother do when she was younger, and as she learned about why her mother did this, she followed the tradition when she was old enough to drive.

Context: My informant is a sophomore at USC majoring in accounting. She is a local student from LA, and we shared this conversation during our anthropology class’s discussion about protection rituals. As recounted in the text, my informant heard this from her mother, and integrates this ritual into her daily driving routine.


Analysis: While this story centers mainly around protection, I believe it falls into a common genre of how many people look towards outside/higher power in the face of uncertainty. Just as how it’s a common action in movies for a soldier to kiss their cross prior to being deployed, the uncertainty and increased chance of accidence that comes from a car malfunction like a headlight going out is daunting, and having this tradition that you believe will bring good luck can help ease that uncertainty and provide a sense of protection. As such, this folklore exemplifies one of the functions it could have, particularly as it relates to belief and easing worries.

Lifting your feet over the drawbridge

Interviewer: “Ever since I could remember, whenever we drove over a drawbridge, you always told my brother and me to lift our feet over a drawbridge. Could you please explain why?”

D: “It’s always been that way. My dad had told me my whole life as well; it was just a thing, you cross over a drawbridge, so you lift your feet. I had to pass it on to my family as well.”

Interviewer: “Do you have any idea what it means, why you do it?”

D: “It’s for luck, not necessarily luck for your day, but more so luck for your future drives. You don’t want your feet touching the car floor when you feel the bumpy road from the texture of the bridge. Even I lift my feet up. Sure, I’ll have a little bit on the gas pedal, but otherwise I’m lifting my feet until the road is flat again.”

Context: Ever since I was a little kid I remeber driving with my dad. Anytime we would pass over a draw bridge, you had to lift your feet up. No matter how long or short the bumps of the bridge lasted. He would start with a warning by saying “ok get ready to lift your feet up!” and then when we hit the bridge said “Go!” and everyone in the car would lift both their feet off of the ground. Sometimes it would be difficukt to hold them up for a while – as an impatient child, but it would be over soon enough, and no way was anyone letting their feet touch the car floor. As soon as the car left the brdige he would say “good” and everyone would put their feet back down immediatly. I am unsure where this supersition came from, but from the interview I gathered my dad had done it his own life and took it on from his dad. My grandpa would say it to all of his 9 kids whenever passing over a draw bridge. This would take place most often from the drives from upstate NY to NYC, but happened anytime there was a drawbridge.

Analysis: This tradition is a form of family folklore that uses superstition and ritual to create a shared sense of meaning during an otherwise ordinary activity. The act of lifting feet over a drawbridge, framed as bringing “luck” for future drives, reflects how belief does not need a clear origin or logic to feel important. This supersition not only prvoides luck for the rest of the drive and future drives, but acts as a shared identity within the family.

Running Over Lemons

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Language: Tamil & English

Text:

Driving over lemons with a newly purchased vehicle.

SB: We place a lemon under every tire of a vehicle we just bought, and then we drive it over so we crush all of the lemons, so it’s as if all the lemons are taking the brunt of the bad luck that the new vehicle might be running into in the future. It’s a preventive measure type of thing…because all the lemons have taken the bad luck, you’re not supposed to step onto a crushed lemon you see on the street because all that bad luck could transfer to you.

Context:

SB is uncertain about the tradition’s origins or what the exact context is. However, she mentions that in in Hinduism, “when you visit a temple, sometimes you break open a coconut, and I’m assuming it has some similar things in terms of destroying these fruits.” She connects breaking these fruits as physical acts of removing bad luck, and she iterates that her family does this whenever they get a new vehicle.

Analysis:

In situations where we feel like we don’t have control, we often try to assert authority through superstitious beliefs. While they may not be scientifically accepted, they can be held true by a community and naturally embed itself into familial tradition. Specifically, when we buy a new vehicle, there’s a lot we may not know: the ins and outs of how the car drives, what it’s like to drive the car amidst a bustling highway, and other factors that could influence our sense of security. When we drive, our lives are in the hands of everyone else on the road. These acts to ensure safe driving can remove the stress from a very anxiety-inducing activity for some people.

There are many driving rituals that exist to prevent bad luck or appreciate good luck, such as holding your breath when passing a graveyard or hitting the dashboard when narrowly escaping a yellow light. Despite laws and policies that attempt to keep our roads safe, institutions can’t really dictate belief. So much of this unofficial knowledge and these individual and communal rituals blossom from a desire to claim more direct control and exercise our personal beliefs. There is no law that tells us how to magically bring upon good luck, and there is no science supporting some of these rituals, but we believe in them anyway and engage in these practices to add an extra layer of security.

Hit the ceiling on Yellow lights

Date: April 20, 2022 

Source and Relationship: T, best friend

Type: Superstition, Tradition

Folklore/ Text: Hit the Roof on Yellow Lights: “Since I’ve had my car, I always knew I wanted to do some weird little traditions with it. I thought it was a right of passage to have your own superstitions about driving. Basically, one day I was watching some movie with Brad Pitt in it and the character driving had to speed to make it through a yellow light, and when he did, he punched the ceiling of his car. They never really explained why he did that but I thought it was awesome so now I do it for good luck. All my friends have learned to do it with me when we’re in the car together too, which is great, because that means extra good luck.”

Explanation/Context: I love this superstition of T’s because it is so specific to her and I’s friendship together, so much so that I’ve found myself doing it in my own car for good luck. Our entire friend group knows about how spooked out T gets about angel numbers and specific street signs, so it only makes sense that we all participate in this strange ritual each time we narrowly escape a red light. I feel it has a placebo effect, as someone who is not superstitious, but nonetheless it provides her comfort and a semblance of safety when driving along Los Angeles roads, which superstitions often do.