WHENEVER MY WIFE (aka The Truly Unpleasant One) and I are riding together in a motorized vehicle and I am operating the vehicle, she feels the need to comment on my driving.

She will note that I am driving too fast, too slow, too close or too far away. Sometimes she will say I am doing all four things at the same time. When I accuse her of being a "backseat driver," Mrs. Johnston will deny it and tell me to keep my eyes on the road.

I've been driving for 40 years, and I can honestly say that I have never run over anyone. The last time I got into an accident, the Beatles were still together. There have been times when I have driven my car to such faraway places as the corner grocery store without Mrs. Johnston in the front seat, gripping the dashboard, pointing out driving infractions. And not once on any of those occasions have I hit a person!

Matter of fact, I like to mention, I have driven all the way up to Everett to see my mother (we're talking about 28 miles here) and I didn't get a speeding ticket, didn't rear-end another vehicle, didn't even get pulled over by a state trooper to check my breath or sanity.

The amazing thing about my driving ability is that when Mrs. Johnston and I were first married, I was able to get into a vehicle and drive from Point A to Point B without any instructions or comments on my driving. What is really amazing is that Mrs. Johnston was sitting next to me, doing things like listening to the radio and looking at the scenery.

Occasionally she would speak to me. Not about my driving but about something like the kids or something she had heard or read. When we approached a red light or had to make a turn, she didn't point it out to me. Instead, Mrs. Johnston just assumed I would be able to handle the task.

But put in a couple decades of marriage and many wrong turns and getting too close to another vehicle (plus raising children who always needed motherly directions so they wouldn't get hurt), it becomes second nature for Mrs. Johnston to offer helpful driving hints.

A few years ago, I happened to mention to a friend that Mrs. Johnston was offering me more driving tips than AAA, and he said that same thing was going on inside their family sedan.

"Just ignore it," was his advice.

I tried a different approach. I told Mrs. Johnston that she was driving me nuts, and I asked her to not make any comments on my driving. Being a semi-reasonable person, she agreed. But that didn't work out too well.

Mrs. Johnston didn't say anything about my driving, but she acted out what I was doing wrong. It was like riding with a mime. If I got too close to the car in front of us, she would push on an imaginary brake in the floorboard. If it looked like I was going to miss a corner and run up onto someone's lawn, she would helpfully turn an invisible steering wheel while I negotiated the turn. When I fell more than 5 feet behind the next car on Interstate 5, she would make little "hurry up" signals with her hands.

That drove me crazier than the spoken comments because I would have to take my eyes off the road to look at her to make sure she wasn't choking to death on a French fry.

But I thought of a way that will keep her happy and allow me to keep driving like a lunatic. I plan to record the old song called "Leader of the Pack." That's the tune about the girl falling for the bad boy who comes from the wrong side of town and all her friends keep "putting him down, down."

The part I plan to record is where the Leader of the Pack gets in a fatal traffic accident and the girlfriend screams those last words he will ever hear, "Look out! Look out! Look out!" and you hear tires squealing and cars and motorcycles smashing.

I figure I can record that warning and put it on a tape loop. Whenever we get into the car, all that would play would be "Look out! Look out! Look out!" and grinding metal.

That should save wear and tear on both of us.

Steve Johnston is a retired Seattle Times reporter. His e-mail address is stevejonst@aol.com. Paul Schmid is a Times news artist.