No punch line here.  It really happened.

The Vatican has issued a set of “10 commandments” for motorists to promote safer driving.
The “Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road” call on drivers to respect speed limits, refrain from drinking before driving and avoid cursing.

Roman Catholics are also urged to make the sign of the cross before setting off on a journey.

This is said to be the first time the Vatican has specifically dealt with the growing worldwide problem of road rage.

For the response of Cagle’s Cartoonist Index, see here.

My suggestion:  Make sure you don’t engage in sign of the cross behavior while driving.   As with cell phone usage, that could be distracting and thus dangerous.  Then again, perhaps the protection enhancement of making the sign of the cross while driving might nullify the increased danger caused by momentarilytaking one’s attention off one’s driving.   Perhaps this issue merits some work to human factors experts to quantify the dangers/benefits.  The real problem, of course, is that one might forget to make the sign of the cross until one has already put the car in drive and started the journey.  Then again, the St. Christopher statue might kick in during those moments of omission.

While we’re at it, let’s run a study to determine the effect of using legitimate birth control so that drivers don’t have so many babies distracting them in the back seat.