Build a Good Foundation

Getting in thedriver’s seat for the first time is nothing like you think it is.When you are in the class room you get board of all the rules andregulations. You don’t think they are important “They are easy toremember” you tell yourself as you drift into daydream mode. Onceyou finally get your passing grade and you see the permit in yourhand you believe you are ready, but you still have to go through“Range” which is “Just another waste of time” you thinkTherefore you don’t pay attention again. You keep putting off behindthe wheel instruction as you don’t need someone “critiquing everylittle detail”. You wait till your parents aren’t home and hop into your car and say “what they don’t know won’t hurt them”.Then you get in the seat with the keys it feels powerful as you aregetting a taste of freedom and starting a right of passage; Howeverwhen looking at the road you cant help but still feel that slightanxiety that grows deep within your gut “did I prepare enough?”.That feeling grows a little larger as you settle into the driversseat and you finally put the key into the slot and turn it forwardtill you hear the rumble of the engine coming to life. “Oh well,I’m just nervous because I haven’t been on the road yet, I’ll getbetter with experience” you try to convince yourself to suppressthe anxiety. You finally calm down and pull out on to the road. “Itsnot to bad” your mind says as you weave through side streets. Youturn onto the main road and that nervousness comes back. Then thingsspeed up, you forgot how it all works, you get frantic andoverwhelmed. You look to the passenger seat hoping to find some oneto help guide you on the road but there is no one there you didn’t gowith a trusted guardian and never with an instructor. You try toremember the rules of the road and rely on what you have been told byyour parents but it all seems to go away because you didn’t payattention. You are lost on your own with no experience. These exactsituations don’t happen often but there are plenty of cases wherekids don’t pay attention to instruction whether its in class orbehind the wheel. Sometimes they skip out completely on that stuff.The truth is when you skip out on all the preparation offered to yousuch as course work in class and the required instruction you havenothing and no one to fall back on to help guide you when you areoverwhelmed by driving. Before you have gained enough solid andconstructive experiences. You are always learning while driving butyou need a good foundation to start at in order to keep you and otherdrivers safe on the road.