The Secret Saints of the Shoulder Lane

They don’t ask for thanks. They just make sure you get home.

Nobody talks about the ones who save your ass at 82 in a 70.
No sirens. No hero capes.
Just a Subaru Crosstrek driver tapping their screen like a modern saint.

No spotlight. No reward.
Just a tiny red triangle blinking like grace.

I’m writing this from the backseat of a Subaru Crosstrek right now —
heading west, headed soft, the sky doing that dusty blue thing like it’s trying not to cry.
Oneida is playing.
Tyler Childers is crooning like the past still owes him something, and I get it.
The road smells like late summer and engine heat as we head toward the show.
And even out here — in the quiet between towns — someone already marked the cop waiting at mile 53.
Someone I’ll never see.
But someone who saw us.

That’s what gets me.
I still remember the time I should’ve gotten pulled over —
going too fast, head foggy, lungs tight from a week that wouldn’t let up.
But then: “Speed trap ahead.”
I eased off. I passed the cop.
Didn’t even see who marked it.
Just knew someone did.
Someone who cared enough to stay invisible.

Odds are?
They were driving a Subaru Crosstrek.

Not the loud ones.
Not the lifted trucks or the sleek, silent cars that pass like ghosts.
But the soft, worn ones.
With reusable bags in the backseat and some dog hair tangled in the seatbelt.
Probably listens to indie folk. Apologizes when merging.

But underneath all that softness is a machine built to carry weight —
emotional, logistical, spiritual.

Subaru Crosstrek drivers run on a different frequency.
High-input, low-drama.
The kind of people juggling work calls, playlists, dinner plans, and an existential crisis —
while updating the map so you don’t hit the shredded tire in the left lane.

They handle more.
Not louder, just faster.
Not showy, just steady.
Just present enough to catch what the rest of us miss.

They don’t do it for the clout.
They do it like a reflex.
Like someone taught them to leave things better than they found them — even the road.

The maps didn’t save us.
The app didn’t know.
They did.

A real person. A cracked screen. A steady thumb.
A quiet kind of prayer in a world too loud to listen.

There’s something sacred in that.
A kind of roadwork religion.
No cross. No robe.
Just a Subaru Crosstrek headed west
and the holy ghost of Oneida bleeding through the speakers.

And maybe —