If You Don’t Like the Way I Drive …

…get off the sidewalk!

I was looking through some old photo albums today and came across a picture that reminded me of the first time I tried to drive the family car. It was nearly the last time I ever drove anything. I didn’t find the situation amusing at all when I was eighteen, but now, well, I guess time and age have changed my perspective. I can now laugh, rather than blush, when I picture that poor patrolman in his squad car, sitting at the corner….

After the frightful experiences of my driver’s ed class (a “whole ‘nother” story), I was not interested in exercising my right to drive. And, too, most of my family’s cars were stick-shifts; the driver’s ed cars had all been automatics. I was terrified of adding another facet to the already overwhelming job of driving and would gladly have left the driving to my folks. For some reason, Dad didn’t like that idea. One Sunday afternoon, he announced that we were going to visit my grandparents, and I would be the family’s chauffeur for the day. So we piled in the car: Mom and my two brothers in the back, Dad in the front passenger seat, and me behind the wheel. I was terrified.

I did fine in the easy-handling BMW until I had to stop for a red light. When the light changed, I couldn’t coordinate the clutching and shifting and accelerating, and I stalled the car. Repeatedly. The guy behind us decided I was sleeping, or color-blind, and he leaned on his horn. His insistent honking made me a nervous wreck, but I managed to get the car rolling again.

A few blocks later, Dad told me to downshift, slow down, and turn right at the next corner. I tried. I took the car out of gear. But I couldn’t get the shifter into the lower gear. Mr. Horn was still behind me, which didn’t help. I continued to wrestle with the stubborn gearshift, finally taking my left hand off the steering wheel to force the darn thing into a gear slot — ANY gear slot. The sight of me with both hands on the gearshift seemed to make Dad nervous. I knew Dad was only scared, not mad, but his shout totally flustered me. As Dad put the car into gear for me, I put my hands on the wheel and made the turn. But in my confusion and nervousness, I hit the gas.

We took the corner at 40 miles an hour, bouncing up one curb and down the other, and leaving ten feet of rubber on the sidewalk. This scared me so bad that I slammed on the brakes. Mr. Horn whizzed past — an angry, blue, honking blur. That’s when I saw the policeman.

He had been waiting for the light to change, and I had passed him as I flung around the corner. He was now staring at me from his patrol car, his jaw resting on top of his belt buckle and his eyes matching his badge for size. My guess is that he didn’t give me a ticket because he figured what I had just been through would discourage me from ever driving like that again. He was right. I very nearly swore off driving for good.

Tags: driving, Family Life, humour, True Stories