Teenage Driving

I have always been one of those parents/people that believe that teenagers should not have drivers licenses or be allowed to operate any sort of vehicle until they are truly afraid of what the consequences are should they do something stupid. Even now looking back I believe I shouldn’t have gotten my license when I did and I was not really capable of driving or fully grasping the concept of damage for a very long time after I had it. I was also one of those teenagers that didn’t necessarily get to drive around because I wanted to, I was only given the keys to the family car when an errand needed to be run and my parents didn’t want to do it themselves. “Here run to the store and grab me this” or “I need gas in the truck for tomorrow, will you get it for me?” for the first few weeks I thought it was the greatest thing in the world tolling around in that giant bronco, I’d pick the farthest grocery store or gas station away so I’d have a longer time behind the wheel. I would try and get the stereo as loud as I could and roll the windows down thinking everyone would know how cool I was in my big truck. What I realize now is I was one of the idiots that annoy the crap out of me now. I don’t want to listen to your music and while I’m sure you truly appreciate the bass that your stereo puts out, the trunk rattle you can hear just shows how much damage your doing and how much money you didn’t put into the sound system. You couldn’t have told that to me then though.


I bring this up because I’ve reached a crossroads in my life and am not sure which direction I should take. I have become tired of being taxi mom and trying to schedule pick ups with my two daughters along with running all of the errands I need to do especially in the winter months when I have to get them all done before the sun goes down (I have night blindness and just getting home from the office before I can’t see is a daily struggle) but I also know all of the stupid things I did as a kid with a very large vehicle at my disposal and I am terrified that my children will either kill themselves or someone else ( not that I have to worry too soon about this, the oldest is just about to be 14, but when she told me the other day she could get her permit in 18 months the reality set in very quickly). I’ve always felt very blessed to have 2 men in my life that knew cars and believed that you should know your vehicles limits, it allows you to drive them better. The problem is that in order to find out said limits you for the most part have to try to kill yourself to get there. Yes the truck really will roll if you turn a corner too sharply and yes you will blow the motor if you try to downshift from 5th to 2nd accidentally, it really does take a long time to stop a vehicle when you’re going 85 miles an hour and antilock brakes only work so long before they give up the fight of your stupidity. Also power steering is a godsend, I guess that’s not something I’ll need to worry about with my girls but I really wish someone had told me how hard it is to steer without it before I learned the hard way.

My boyfriend at the time and I were taking night classes at the local community college, I was still in high school and if I remember correctly I don’t think I even had my license at that point just a permit but as young people tend to be stupid I had convinced him to let me drive his 67 Impala around the parking lot to get practice. It was a boat, and aside from having no seatbelts, heater and blankets to cover the torn seats, it did not have power steering or power brakes. Everything was going fine to begin with and I circled the different parking lot for a few minutes before I got brave enough to take it out on a side street and go around the block. As I was making my way back to the parking lot a huge truck started coming the other direction, I remember being blinded by the headlights, slowing down to a crawl and turning into the cars parked along the street to give him room. I know now what I did wrong but at that point in time all I heard as I was trying to drive away was the ear piercing screech of metal on metal as I slid my car down the side of someone else’s. I desperately tried to correct my mistake but lacked the strength to move the behemoth at such a slow speed. After getting the car into the parking lot I ran back to the other vehicle – to this day all I can tell you is it was white, and the only reason I know that is because that was the streak of color running down the side of my car. I waited around for a bit hoping the person would come out they never did, I did leave a note on the car and pushed one through the crack of the window just in case the one on the hood blew away, and ran shamefully away. I never did get a phone call from the owner to help pay for the damage, and thankfully there wasn’t a person riding a bike or walking between cars. On the upside, the very next day a pump went into the car for power steering and power brakes on the boat and from later experience I can tell you that thing whipped doughnuts like a champ.