learn to drive

I encountered an interesting set back this weekend when my boyfriend took me to the parking lot of the local community college to practice driving.

I discovered I am terrified of driving around other cars.

The community college had a load of huge parking lots with a road connecting all of them. All in all the place was pretty empty with only the occasional car passing slowly through. It was not a scary environment. Even so, the moment I saw the first car pass, I froze. I got behind the wheel and I simply couldn’t move. I was so scared that I’d hit another car that I aborted the practice session and said I didn’t want to earn a license if it meant I had to drive around other people.

What’s weird is I wasn’t afraid of hurting myself. I was afraid I’d hurt someone else or someone else’s car. Even the slightest threat that I might, maybe, perhaps hit someone, no matter how low the probability, freaks me out so bad it makes me not want to drive. At all. Ever.

I can’t think of anything that might help me get over this. I don’t think there is anything that can. I’d rather spend the rest of my life at the mercy of mass transportation than risk getting behind the wheel of a car and killing someone. Sorry, I don’t want that kind of responsibility. So, this goal may be dead in the water.

It has gotten to the point where I no longer want to practice driving. I find it boring and monotonous practicing the same old things over and over again: parking, three point turn, remembering to signal, stopping at the right time. I drive in circles never going more than 4 miles per hour and it’s just plain dull. I don’t feel ready to drive around other cars or drivers yet, but I wish there were something more I could do, some new challenge I could tackle.

My boyfriend says I need to keep practicing because I’m not proficient yet. He says I need to become better at multi-tasking. Unfortunately, I suck at multi-tasking, always have. My brain just isn’t wired for it.

When you’re driving you need to pay attention to a lot of stuff: the cars around you, the road in front of you, the lines on the road, road signs, pedestrians. I tend to zero in on one thing when I’m driving, usually the road, and tune out everything else. Unfortunately, when I do this I end up ignoring other vital information. But when I try to focus on everything I am unable to focus on anything and end up missing vital information anyway! If I suck at multi-tasking how will I ever learn to drive?

Last weekend we finally went and got me a little booster pillow. Lemme tell ya, it is so much easier to park squarely in a parking space when you can actually SEE the lines.

It has come to our attetion that I am short. So short that I cannot see out the back window of my bf’s car when I’m driving. We discovered this a couple weeks ago while he was trying to teach me how to make a three point turn. When it came time to go in reverse and I told him that all I could see out the back was the sky he said, “Um, that’s not good.” So, we’re gonna need to buy me a cushion to sit on while driving so I can see what the hell is going on outside of the car.

My official learner’s permit arrived in the mail today. Naturally, the picture of horrible, but that’s par for the course.

True to his word, this weekend my boyfriend gave me my first real driving lesson. Saturday he took me out to this elementary school near his house and let me drive his car around the parking lot. He showed me how to do a three point turn, and just how to turn in general. He taught me how to make the car go straight, (something I have NEVER been able to do!) I learned to adjust the mirrors, and go around turns, and I did a lot better then I was expecting to. Of course, it helped that he drives a sports car with a very stiff steering wheel which made it easy for me to control the car.

I had a lot of fun and he said we’ll keep on practicing every weekend.

I got my learner’s permit today!!! Yay!

Okay, there! Done! My boss approved my request to take next Wednesday off and go take the written test and get my Learner’s Permit. It’s official; I can’t back out of it.

But, ask me if I’ve studied? On second thought, don’t.

It has come to my attention that there is no way I’m going to muster the courage to go take the written exam unless I actually make an appointment and write it into my calendar.

I would really like to go on a Wednesday. I figure everyone with really pressing matters will have had them taken care of them earlier in the week so there might not be as many people milling about. So, I think December 12th sounds like a good day. Next week I’ll ask if I can have the day off.

I better start studying.

Well, I finally finished reading the driver’s manual and now I plan to set a small goal for myself. I want to take the the written test and get my learner’s permit before I go on vacation in mid-October. There it is.