Grandpa’s Rollercoaster Rides

“Arms up kids; and give me a ‘Wheeeee!!!’” I can still hear those words my grandpa would always tell me when he was taking a sharp turn while refusing to reduce his speed to a safe MPH. My grandfather, whom I loved dearly, was famously a very reckless driver in our family. He owned a prominent small business most of his life, and most law enforcement officers that pulled him over would let him off the hook when they saw his ID and recognized him. As a child, this was all just a big joke to everyone around me, making it a joke to me too. I loved when I rode in the car with Grandpa Denny because it was always so much more “fun” than when other adults drove me around. Of course I know now that all of his driving habits were extremely hazardous to himself, his passengers, and the other drivers on the road. I can still remember when my father was in the front passenger seat yelling at Grandpa Denny, “Dad, that’s a one-way! You can’t drive down that road!” to which my grandfather famously yelled back, “I’m only goin’ one way God dammit!”. We always fondly referred to riding with grandpa as going on a “rollercoaster ride” and I loved it.

As a child, his antics endlessly amused me; he was my grandpa, he was the coolest old man out there. However, my perspective started to take a turn once I took Driver’s Education in high school. I was so excited to finally get out on the road myself and experience the world independently, but as the beginning of this story might not suggest, I was also a very cautious child and I wanted to be a responsible driver. Only a month into the class, it was very apparent to me just how reckless of a driver my grandfather was. I always had the impression that he “bent” the rules, not outright shattered them. I had to go to my parents at 15 years old, 4 years after we had lost Grandpa Denny, and ask them if grandpa really was a bad driver. “Oh hell yeah!” my father quickly replied, “One of the worst drivers I have ever known” my mother finished. It was almost a shock to the system, but all of the evidence was right there in front of me. My grandfather certainly wasn’t a bad person, he was the friendliest man to every person he had ever met, but it was undeniable that what I had enjoyed so much as a small child was wrong.

It took me a little while to reconcile the objective truth of driver safety and my personal truth of the time I enjoyed riding in my grandpa’s truck. One day in Driver’s Ed I learned a very interesting fact that blew the whole conundrum wide open for me. Driver’s Exams weren’t required in Missouri until 1955. My grandfather was already of driving age by then; he learned to drive through instinct and however his parents instructed him and had no one requiring him to pass a test to drive. This new perspective gave me an even greater appreciation of Driver’s Safety. I was lucky, my grandfather was especially lucky, not to have been injured -or killed- in a motor vehicle accident. I will never forget, and always preach, the importance of Driver’s Education when it comes to learning to drive. It is an absolute essential to educate America’s youth of the dangers posed by driving unsafely and uneducated. There is also the added benefit of not letting children fall victim to the unsafe driving habits of their elders. To this day, I will not ride in a car driven by my best friend. He drives so aggressively and unsafely, just like his father. He did not have the benefit of Driver’s Ed, his father deemed it a “Waste of time” and that “The only real teacher is behind the wheel experience.”. His father was in an accident that cost the passenger of the other car their life. It was his fault, trying to pass on the shoulder like so many people casually do. Unfortunately, him nor his learned from the tragic event, but I know that if he were properly educated and drove as dictated by the law, that person would be alive today.

All of this is to say, I will always think of Grandpa Denny’s driving fondly and remember the good times it brought me; but it will also always be used as an example with my children on what not to do while driving. The best thing that we can do to reduce deaths/injury from driving is diligently teach the younger generations about best driving practices and safety. Trust that education professionals know best when teaching our kids. Show them what has and can happen if you drive recklessly, and instill in them that there are consequences to oneself and others when you choose to drive unsafely.