Driver's Education

What do you think when you hear 'Driver's Ed'? Some that have not had that glorious experience yet may feel anticipation and excitement or even dread and worry. Personally, before I took the Driver's Education Class I was extremely excited! I emphasize BEFORE. ;) Hindsight is always 20/20.

To start my whole experience I had to get my learner's permit. On my birthday a friend came over  to celebrate and had picked up the driving handbook for me so I could begin studying! The handbook was filled with all the things I needed to know about driving. It had stuff I knew already and stuff I didn't know (or wanted to). For example there is an entire chapter on trains. TRAINS! I checked the cover again just to make sure I didn't have the Driving Handbook for Trains instead of cars. Why would trains be in a book for cars. Did they think I was going to drive a train? I guess not, but apparently there is enough people that get in sticky situations with trains that they put a chapter about it in the handbook. Even so with an ENTIRE chapter on trains stuff like this still happens. You can see for your self . . .

. . . moving on. After you study then you take a test to get your permit. I think you can never be to careful so I read through the handbook 3-5 times just in case.  I actually wasn't to worried about passing, but you never know. Later that month I went in to get my permit. After finishing all the paperwork I got my test pin number and sat down to take the test. The questions seemed fairly simple though some took a while to answer. At the end I looked at my results and saw that I had FAILED. I had failed the test! That was a huge shock. Suddenly, I worried that I wouldn't be able to drive until I was 40! That was of course an invalid concern. I sheepishly walked up to the front desk, and quietly told them I had failed. Turns out you get two tries a day to pass. Hooray! I still had hope to drive before 40! They gave me a new test pin, I retook the test, and passed. Wow, it was a rough start to my driving career.

Psst . . . 
Please! If you have the choice, take a little piece of advice. Take Driver's Ed in the summer! It is less torture to have two long weeks rather then a whole trimester (which is twelve weeks). 

I have been wanting to drive since I was eight and now I finally had my chance to fulfill my dream! When I started driving with my permit to practice I thought I was already a pro, which led to some little (OK actually some potentially BIG) mistakes (which I won't mention). A couple weeks before class started, after practicing for a while and getting the hang of it, I felt I was ready for anything Driver's Ed could throw at me! That is of course before I actually went to Driver's Ed :) Once I met my Teacher and Instructor everything changed. After the first day, I realized that I had had no idea what I was getting into!!! 

Since the class material was heavily condensed (because of the two weeks rather then twelve) there was tons of homework every day. Homework in the SUMMER! Who invented such a thing?! 

The first video the Teacher showed us was this one on Driver's Ed. Absolutely hilarious skit!

The teacher then began to tell us about all these practice driving experiences we had to do. They included Range Drives (in-class and after-class), Instructor Drives, State Road Test--each with rules, and specifications. Every single drive was a different day, time, place, person, etc. and our teacher rattled all of this off expecting us to remember. It was all very confusing! 

Every time the State Road Test was brought up by the Teacher or Instructor, they talked of all the ways we could automatically fail. They told stories, gave us facts, showed us the test sheet. I felt like the State Road Test was practically impossible to pass. I was worried the only way to pass was to bribe them, but then I realized I would probably only be automatically failed because I tried to bribe them.

Before Driver's Ed I was confident but when I started I became stressed out. At the end of the first week I got a fever because of the stress. I couldn't skip class because I was sick. The teacher had told us that if we didn't make it to class there was hardly any make-up days we could do, so if we didn't come you would fail the class and I didn't want to fail. So I had to go to class sick and suffer through it. As well as being sick I had multiple nightmares over drivers ed. Nightmares people! Maybe I was a little uptight about it but that was the way it was. I would have fitful nights of no rest because in my dream I was driving and didn't want to make a mistake. So my brain couldn't concentrate on sleep when it was so focused on the road in a very realistic faux reality!

The range was a both a extremely stressful and boring experience. Boring, because you drive in circles at 10 mph for literally hours! Stressful, because the teacher or instructor will sit in the tower and watch every car waiting for the slightest mistake. Before taking the class on the range the first time, my teacher told us that when he got out there his devil horns came out and he became a cross between Satan and Osama Bin Laden! We all laughed not realizing that he wasn't kidding. 

Maybe I take Driving to Seriously...

When you get in the car you have to change the radio to a certain channel so the teacher can talk to you while you drive. Every other car can hear the corrections, so you become publicly shamed! This happened many times as some kids took half an hour to turn on their car (they had put the car into drive and THEN tried to turn it on, and couldn't figure out what was wrong) which produced a colorful reaction from the teacher. At times students were not paying attention while backing up and almost hit other cars.

Growing up, every time I saw a "student driver" sign on a car I got worried they were going to crash into us. When I was little I constantly judged those kids behind the wheel. That was before I became one of those poor kids behind the wheel under all that pressure. I hoped people weren't judging me for making a mistake like I had when I was little. It's almost like when one is on a bike they don't like cars because the cars almost hit them and when that person is in a car they don't like bikers because they hog the road. 

During most the drives, I managed to escape without much critique and learned a ton. My road test instructor was amazing. I was super stressed about the State Road Test, but in the end I passed it (the first time). Yes! I had survived Driver's Education!!

I have great examples to follow. My friends are all great driver's. One friend texts constantly while she drives and I don't know if she realizes the danger yet despite the fact people have told her. Another friend (he's 15) does farm work and was in a manual stick shift pick-up on farm business. 'Technically' you should have your legal guardian or parent in the passenger seat while you drive if you don't have your license yet and only your permit. He had nether his parent or permit with him on this errand. On the way back to the farm, on public roads, he was shifting back into first up a hill. When he put in the clutch the truck slid back down the hill into a ladies fence. Yet another friend was driving with his instructor, when he saw a yellow Volkswagen beetle he yelled 'slug bug' and punched his instructor. The instructor replied "oh so now we are playing slug bug!" The rest of the drive the driver hit passenger and vise-versa. 

Now this is my kind of student driving! I would go through it all again if I could drive this bad boy.