Learning To Drive

I truly had no idea what my parents went through while teaching 5 kids how to drive a car.  From my point of view it was an exciting and fun-filled time.  I was approaching the age of being able to drive and I was hungry, I was eager, I was excited to get that license.  Not only that, I was the envy of all my friends, because I was learning to drive in a 1969 Ford Country Squire station wagon.  For those of you not familiar with this vehicle, it was quite possibly one of the largest, bulkiest, way uncool vehicles for a teenager to be seen in on the planet.  My dads’ car had a standard transmission, so we were saving that little experience for a later time, so I had just one choice for my training vehicle.  I don’t actually remember that much about the actual process of learning how to drive.  I am sure I just got in and was driving like a pro in no time at all.

So here I was in this simulated wood panel adorned station wagon the length of a bus and I was ready to go get my drivers license.  I was driving my mom to the drivers testing facility, riding in style, getting looks from all the ladies, and I knew that very day I would be on top of the world because I would be able to finally drive alone.  We parked out in front of the testing facility, went in and got my Drivers Testing Professional.  Once he got into the car he uttered those words that have echoed in my mind ever since, “Ok we are first going to perform a safety inspection on the car to make sure it is ok to do your test in.”  I was there thinking “What the crap are you talking about?  I am here to show you I can drive a car, my car isn’t taking the test you dough-head, I am.”  So he asks me to test the turn signals to make sure they work - so far so good - sound the horn (and there goes the awaited blaring of the horn). “OK set the emergency brake,” he says.  I say, “Excuse me, did you say, ‘put your foot on the brake,’ so you can see if the brake lights work?”  He says no, “Set the emergency brake.”  I say “Oh, you say it is time to take a break?”  He said, “What are you deaf? I want you to apply the emergency brake, you no good piece of high school, waste of space.”  I perceived that maybe this guy was getting a little irritated with me, so I go to mash my foot on the emergency brake pedal and while doing so, in my best ventriloquist voice I say, “Click, Click, Click.”  I think he saw my lips move, so he says, “Your emergency brake doesn’t work, does it?”  I confessed that it did not, and so he sent me packing. 

Two long and agonizing months later, after the broken part for the emergency brake is delivered… I mean what takes two months to order?  They must have had to go out and dig the rocks out of the ground in a remote part of Mongolia, take the rock to a metal mill in Michigan, melt the metal for form and ingot, ship the ingot to China, manufacture the part to order, ship the finished part to Japan, lose the part for 3 weeks, ship the part to Lexington, Kentucky and then it probably took 15 minutes to install it in the car. 

Ok, even though delayed, I got all psyched up again.  The license was in sight and we made the trip to the testing place again.  I parked in front, we went to get the Drivers Testing Engineer and we got in the car and he says those same words.  “Ok we are first going to perform a safety inspection on the car to make sure it is ok to do your test in.”  I am thinking, “Yeah, bring it on, scum-bag.”  Now that we know there is going to be a safety inspection on the car, I am ready for anything they are going to throw at me.  Me and the car are one!  So we go through his checklist, and everything he throws at me and the car, we deliver on and pass that test with flying colors.  “In your face, Mr. Testing Man!”  So Mr. Testing man says “Ok, we are good to go, you can start the car up now, and let’s begin.”  I am pumped; the adrenalin was coursing through my veins. I was stretching my fingers ready to grip the steering wheel, but first just one formality… turn that ignition.  So I grip the key, turn the ignition, and… and nothing.  NOTHING!!! Not a dang thing.  I have done this many times before and I am thinking, “Wait, there is supposed to be a noise.”  But instead there was just silence.  Silence is not what you want to hear in this particular situation.  It turns out that the starter motor was shot and guess what…  if the car doesn’t run, they don’t let you take the driving test.  I couldn’t believe this was happening to me.  Somebody had to be sabotaging our car.  I was once again humiliated as we called for a tow truck to take us and the car home.  Not the victory ride I was imagining.  In the famous words of Charlie Brown, “ARRGGH.” 

The starter motor took just a week or so to get fixed.  I was apprehensive but was thinking that surely nothing could stop me a third time.  I was driving mom to the testing place, and I began to notice that the car, or should I say boat, was running a bit sluggishly.  It wasn’t idling so well, and as I accelerated, it was hesitating like it might stall on me.  By then I had blood seeping out of my eye sockets, because I was envisioning in my mind headlines of “Car Screws Over 16 year-old for a Third Time in a Row.”  I had visions of all my high school classmates pointing their fingers and laughing at me.  The car and I are no longer one; we are now mortal enemies.  If the car could understand me, I would have started threatening it.  Not to be deterred, I continued on the drive to the testing facility.

We went in to get Mr. Testing Aficionado.  By this time, I am telling him as he gets in the car, “Ok, we are first going to perform a safety inspection on the car to make sure it is ok to do your test in.”  He looks at me as if to say, “Buddy, you don’t want to get on my bad side.”  We sailed through the safety inspection; I held my breath as I turned the ignition key on and with some stuttering the car started.  But it wasn’t pretty, the engine was idling like it was about to take its last gasp, and I was just waiting for Mr. Testing Guy to say, “This car isn’t fit to take the test in,” but the words never came.  So he told me to pull out into the street.  As I did so, the car hesitated and sputtered, but limped along.  I was waiting for the words “We better turn back cause this car isn’t going to make it,” but the words never came.  We took a few turns and accelerated down another street.  The car coughed and choked, but Mr. Testing Dude never says a thing about the piece-of-crap car I was forced to drive at what should have been my finest hour.  So we finally limped to victory, me and the County Squire.

After all these years I can look back on that car with a bit fonder memories.  Dang, after all, that baby had a 429 cubic inch engine in it, which at the time was the largest engine ever placed in a production car.  When it was running smoothly that thing could drink the gas and get up and go.

During that whole ordeal, and the whole time my parents were teaching all of us kids to drive, it never once crossed my mind that this could have been a stressful situation for them.  Now I am the parent.  I have now taught two of my three children to drive so far.  For those of you who have been through this age with children, you know that this is among the scariest time in child rearing.  Not because they are getting exposed to drugs, alcohol, vulgarity, radical ideas, dating, etc. at every turn.  No, the scary thing is teaching them to drive a car.  This is truly one of the most nerve-racking experiences known to mankind.  I now know why it costs $90,000 a month to insure a 16-year-old to drive.  So as I was approaching the first drive with my oldest, I was thinking how hard can this be?  After all, driving is a piece of cake.  So I took my son to a parking lot and we drove around a little with no problems.  This was going well and I was thinking we are about done with his training.  The next lesson we went to a quiet neighborhood near our house, and I let him take the reins.  I was trying to act calm and not startle him, but right away I was thinking “What the heck is wrong with your brain?  Are you not seeing the same thing that I am?  You are driving down the flippin’ middle of the road!  If someone comes at us in the other lane, someone is going to die!”  So I calmly said, (while my left hand was squeezing my leg so hard I was sure I was drawing blood and my right hand was ripping the armrest off of the car door), “Hmm Jeff, you are driving down the middle of the road, you have all this space off to our right side.”  He responded in a “Get a grip Dad, I know what I am doing” voice, “I don’t want to get too close to the cars parked on the side of the road.”  I was thinking, “Well you don’t want to get too close to the cars driving in the other lane causing us to crash and die either, now do you?” but I was actually saying, in a calm voice “You are ok; you have plenty of room on the right side.”  Then there were the turns.  He was are either cutting the corner just a bit sharp and running over curbs, sidewalks, yards, dogs, and children, or taking the turns a bit too wide and side-swiping all 35 cars waiting to make a left-hand turn.

I am so confused.  These kids can kick my butt in the driving games we play on the Nintendo, but hand-eye coordination, awareness of your surroundings, and depth perception all fly out the window when you put them into the real thing.  I am also thinking, through this whole process, how come teaching the kids to drive is always my job?  My wife doesn’t get into the car with one of the kids until I have had them out at least 84 times.  Then she says, “Why don’t you let me take a turn with the kids.” 

Even after the kids get their license, for about 6 months, every time the phone rings you are afraid to answer it on the chance that it is the new driver calling to inform you that they had a little accident.  “Uh Dad, I seem to have misjudged the distance between me and the car in front of me, and the fact that they were stopped at a red light and that I had to stop also.”  Or, “I guess my foot got a little confused between the brake pedal and the gas and I might have given the car in front of me a slight bump that caved in the rear fender.”  Bye the way, both of those were actual incidents that happened to my first two teen drivers.  And then there is always “I didn’t see that tree, why do they put them so close to the road, it isn’t my fault.”  So I still have one kid left to learn how to drive and I am thinking that there is no way my heart can take it.  I wonder if I can hire one of the neighbors to teach her how to drive.  I think I am going to walk her next door and say “Here is $500, bring her back when she knows how to drive.” 

If the stress of teaching the young ones to drive isn’t bad enough there is the stress of figuring out how to pay for the car insurance; especially the boys.  My wife and I were completely stunned and amazed at how much it was going to cost us to insure our son.  We ended up having to set up a special bank account and take donations to help us pay for the increase in our car insurance.  We couldn’t understand why the price was so high and felt the insurance companies were really sticking it to us and all other people with new drivers.  After our son had his license for a while, we felt the need to stop spending our whole existence car pooling him to and from two-a-day cross-country practices.  So we thought we would be smart and buy him a cheap vehicle that we wouldn’t care about insuring for collision, but just cover it for liability.  When we talked to Jeff about the type of vehicle we should look at (as if we were going to listen to his input) he said “The ‘chicks’ like guys with trucks.”  We kept telling him that those are the types of girls of questionable character and that the really cute -- yet quality girls dig a guy who drives his Mom’s minivan.  He didn’t quite buy it.  So we ended up finding a small pickup truck for $800 that seemed to run pretty well.  The truck actually held up quite good for an old beater until one day, about two months after buying it, Jeff ran it into the back of a much bigger truck.  That brought a quick and decisive end to his driving to school and a quick return to the endless car pools.  As many of Jeff’s friends began to get their licenses we couldn’t believe how many stories we heard about the wrecks that each of them were getting in.  When I was a new driver, I never got in a wreck and I don’t recall any of my friends getting in accidents either.  But now it seems that well over 50% of my son’s peers are playing bumper cars with their parent’s vehicles.  I now completely understand why the cost to insure a 16-year-old boy is so high.  It used to be that the insurance agent would tell you “In the unlikely event that your child is in an accident, this insurance will give you peace of mind that you are covered.”  Now it is more like “We have shown that 16-year-old boys only have half a brain and the half that is missing is that part that would show good judgment and decision-making skills, so we know he is going to smash your vehicle up.  We therefore suggest you take a second mortgage out on your house so you can pay the insurance premiums.”