My mom pretty much said, “Okay, Julie…now you need to remember that this car is a big heavy machine that goes at high speeds. You hold my life, your life, and the lives of all the people around us in your hands. Start the car!” So, I was terrified. After several attempts, she and my stepfather gave up trying to teach me.
I took Driver’s Ed in school and passed it with a B, but that was mostly for staying awake during the safety films. It embarrasses me now to imagine what a pain in the ass it must have been for my friends to drive me around everywhere.
Anyway, years later, I had a kid and a job and it was time to try, try again! With the help of a professional teacher, I finally was able to get my license (on the third try).
We had driver’s ed in highschool. Besides the classroom lectures we went out on the road with the teacher and a couple of other students.
I wasn’t terrified, but I’ll bet the teacher and passengers were when I was behind the wheel. I was asked more than a couple of times to slow down and not stray so close to the shoulder on the country roads we were on. The sound of tires on loose gravel made them a bit uncomfortable. Oh well, we all survived…
I stole, err… borrowed my parent’s car when I was 14 and went for some joyrides. So, no I wasn’t scared. Back then there was no graduated licensing system in place in Ontario.
I passed my written test on my 16 birthday, sick as a dog with a cold, and two months later I was free to drive anywhere at anytime.
Pretty much no fear, ever. Then again, we always had a motor boat when I was growing up and by the time I was seven or eight my dad trusted my ability to navigate well enough to have me take the boat all the way across the San Francisco Bay, up the Petaluma River and dock it while he had the coping off the engine in back trying to diagnose a weird noise. I learned to drive the boat for water skiers and was allowed to go out on my own when I proved I could swim a half mile unassisted. I think I was around ten when I qualified for that.
Had one lesson in the car with my dad in a big parking lot, then went on to “borrow” the car on numerous occasions that my parents thankfully never learned about. Learned to drive stick shift at about fourteen, when the guy who owned it declared himself too drunk to drive and tossed me the keys, even though I’d been drinking too–but a lot less than he had. That was a white knuckle slow trip home, that was. Then got another chance at stick a few months later in a drastically overpowered Dodge Charger–I could do fine going UP the gears but nobody ever explained about downshifting so I also got an impromptu lesson in drifting by attempting a right turn way too fast onto a four lane road with no middle island. Luckily for all concerned it was super late at night and nobody was on the road. I couldn’t take driver’s ed or driver’s training because I was either the wrong age or the wrong grade in school due to having skipped a grade so I bypassed all of that and went in on my eighteenth birthday to take the test and passed it first try.
Since then I’ve logged well over a million miles behind the wheel driving everything from motorcycles to ATVs to box trucks and flatbeds–I’ve still not learned to drive a semi but figure I’d pick it up pretty easily. A quarter million of those miles were as a paid driver in various circumstances. I’ve only had one serious accident, due to a tie rod that blew at 60mph–not my fault. Been rear ended a few times by idiots but generally have been quite fortunate considering how much time I’ve spent out in the boonies on logging roads and the like in all weather. I like driving, it’s what I do for entertainment.
Best way to stop being spooked is to just log the miles–if you can possibly arrange for skid pad training that would be the A#1 thing I’d recommend for building confidence because knowing what to do when it all goes pear shaped is a huge asset.
My first behind-the-wheel session at a driving school was somewhat terrifying. As I put the car in gear, the instructor asked, “Do you drive?” I said, “No,” and refrained from adding “Why the hell do you think I’m here?” Evidently a lot of teenagers show up at driving school with extensive prior experience as unlicensed drivers.
I grow up on a small farm in Ohio. I don’t remember how old I was but the criteria was: tall enough to look over the hood of a Ford 8N tractor while depressing the brake peddles. Farm tractors at the time almost universally had one brake on the left rear wheel and one brake on the right rear wheel with a piece of metal that you could move around to lock them together.
Been driving since I was about 13 on field roads in beat up farm trucks, (yes, we could even drive into town, nobody cared in an itty bitty town like ours) then graduated to the family Buick LeSabre, which was a big ol’ land yacht. If you drive the same vehicle often, you’ll quickly develop muscle memory for controlling it well. I have frequent work-related travel, and I am amazed myself at how quickly I get accustomed to constantly different rental vehicles.
Nothing new to add really except this advice for your future driving career:
If you miss your turn or your exit, it’s fine. You can turn around. Do NOT risk your own and everyone else’s life to cut over to make it at the last minute. It ain’t worth all that! It’s just a missed turn/exit.
And if you are in a lane that is merging, for the love of all you consider holy, please get on over before the lane runs out.
I apologize if I came across as being anti-driving. If GF wants to spend time teaching you how to drive then you are kind of committed to doing that. My initial diatribe was based on my problems with the cost of private transportation as well as the cost of doing business with other drivers sharing the road with you.
It is a good thing for you to have a valid drivers license. Take the written test and the driving test. You should not have any problem passing. The only point I really meant to make was, if you don’t have to be on the road, don’t go there. Insurance costs a lot, and for good reason. If you are smart/lucky enough to get to work, the market, the clubs, without a vehicle, then you are doing your life better than most folk.
I don’t know how much money you are planning on spending for your first car. Once you step into the car-owner world, your life will change. The independence that on-demand transportation gives you is off-set by the constant drain on your income.
Be careful of what you wish for, you just might get it.
I second this. I’ve played many video games throughout my life, and still do. Driving a car is much easier in real life, even if doing fun stuff in parking lots or less than legally on roads. Doing burnouts, spins, slaloms, peeling out and using the e-brake(handbrake) in games is much harder than doing them in real life in terms of controlling the vehicle. The thing is, if you screw it up in real life or in the wrong place, you could hurt someone or be hurt, and/or hurt your car unlike video games. But in real life, the degree of control a car has is much better than a game. It feels safer than in video games, but has actual risks involved that are real.
