Pride goeth with a screeching of tires.

I rear-ended someone this morning on the highway. Pretty much totally my fault, too. I was about 3 inches behind a lumbering SUV in the left lane at a major intersection, using my lightning-quick reflexes to ride their derriere and not allow some jerk to merge in, and the SUV in front of me used its 9" wide tires to stop on a dime. Unfortunately, the tired slicks I have been driving on that are desperately in need of replacement did not fare as well, I sat on my brakes, and slid neatly into the SUV's rear.

The problem here is that I have liability only, and my car is pretty smashed up. Since reading Mere Christianity I have been working very hard at curbing my pride, but as I growled fiercely at the other drivers on the road and indignantly clamped off the space between me and the car in front of me I must have forgotten that we all have someplace to be and I should just relax.
Some sort of combination of anger at bad drivers, anger at the bad morning radio show, anger at the merging traffic, and anger at the crappy highway that is falling apart caused me to forget my Calmness Initiative.
Now I'm paying the price for it.

There's a deeper message here. We all share the road and I should have given the car in front of me more space. But I also need to look at the character flaws within myself that caused the collision. Sure, things like this just happen. But the more I think about it (which is all you can do after an accident), the more I begin to believe that the fundamental characteristics of me are what caused this accident.
Competitiveness, anger, pride, and greed.
I want to drive faster, better, cleaner than the other drivers. I want to be the one that can get away with being 20 feet behind a car at 65 mph with no qualms.
Other drivers that don't adhere to my driving rules make me angry. Especially as I teach myself to drive safer and calmer, the people who drive aggressive make me very indignant. Very angry.
I feel if I whip in and out of lanes, if I can foresee the slower lane far ahead and prevent myself from being in it, somehow I'm driving a cleaner drive than the people who listlessly change lanes for no reason, who just idly sit by in the right lane and take the delays.
And last but not least, greed. I want to beat everyone and be the first to the front. I want to get to work as fast as I legally can, so I can clock in and get more money. I want to see people behind me, falling further behind, and know the road ahead is mine, and mine alone.

These are the reasons I had a collision this morning. And they are the fundamental things about my character that I most want to change.