Driving is not an easy task. That is certainly a statement that many drivers, young or old, would agree with. I distinctly remember many times during my driving lessons when I was clearly out of it. As one can imagine, it often did not go well, and, after a fairly emotional and short drive, I had to simply stop. I have learned a lot from those errors, though, and I certainly wish I went out driving more. I have simply grown away from the habit of practicing after receiving my driving license. I had finished the race, and I saw no purpose in continuing to strive for a prize that never seemed to be there in the first place. My mother has encouraged me multiple times to go out and work on it just a little bit every day, but driving, once again, is a scary thing. I have been in an accident with my mother. I got off school early because of an appointment, and she asked if I wanted to go to Sams with my extra time. As we pulled into the parking lot, a truck came flying by. I believe I saw it before her, but regardless, neither one of us had much time to react.
My mom swerved. The airbags went off. My ears rang. My heart pounded. Through the dimness of my ears, I managed to hear my mother ask if I was okay, to which I responded that I was. My mom, after much cursing, pulled into the parking lot to call 911. We ended up shoving a bunch of stuff from the car into my backpack, and I worked on some homework while we waited. We talked to the guy who was driving the other vehicle, and he introduced himself to us, though I cannot remember his name now. Apparently his daughter was watching a movie in the backseat the entire time, and we had no clue, so I presume that she was perfectly fine, which I am grateful for.
Finally, the cop came by. We gave him all the information he needed, but it was soon clear that me getting off early was completely useless. It took several hours to go through the whole process, but by the end, I had learned a lot about how to handle accidents should I ever get into one.
I went to a driving school for my driving lessons initially. The classroom hours certainly got a bit boring at times, but I actually learned a lot from them, such as the physics of cars and how to correct sliding and hydroplaning. Then came the behind-the-wheel lessons. I spent a good deal of time preparing this, being really nervous and all. Thankfully, my instructor turned out to be the owner of the driving school, who taught the first lesson during my classroom hours and whose daughter works at the desk with her service dog as an unfortunate sufferer from epilepsy. He talked about how she has to take breaks for several months from driving whenever she has a seizure, and they both seemed like genuinely compassionate people, so having to take driving lessons helped lift some of the anxiety off of my back.
He was a very patient man and would often have conversations with me while we were driving to make sure that I was comfortable. We would often joke together, and he always made sure that I was safe, which isn’t surprising, considering the fact that all of the people who work at the driving school are former members of the police department, and he is no different.
This was, however, the time during which driving often felt like a chore. It wasn’t something I wanted to do; it was something I had to do. Regardless, I kept at it until I was ready to take my official test. Before that, however, my mom insisted that there was something else I needed to do.
I have struggled with anxiety and ADD throughout my life, but my mom, understanding my stress, looked up ADD driving and found out about a program at Cincinnati Children’s for ADD people. It was basically a few sessions of running through different simulations to test my ability to scan my surroundings while maneuvering a vehicle. It taught me a lot and managed to assuage my fears even further.
After I finished that, as I said, I had to take my test, so my dad and I, in preparation, would go to a parking lot and practice maneuverability. That meant we ended up with a lot of sand in the car from the sandbags that we used to weigh down the cones, but the practice really made me feel confident. Until the test day. I had to drive with a man with a thick accent, so I did not truly know how to follow many of his directions. Needless to say, I did not pass the first time, but the second time, I had a man who was much more patient and easy to understand, and I only missed a few points for a bad turn at the end and not being exactly parallel.
Overall, I’d say that driving has taught me how to learn from my failures and push on through even when times are tough.