The First Driving Lesson

Just a disclaimer, this has nothing to do with any political views.

My granddaughter is finally taking driver's ed this year, why finally? Well, she was held back a year so we all here the lament of the already 16 year old who doesn't have her license yet. I had nothing to do with that, I tell her, but go forward!

Last night there was the meeting for the parents and driver's ed students. It was very informative, both about the laws of our state, what the instructors are responsible for, the students and the parents. In Illinois, before a teen is given a license, s/he must have at least 50 hours behind the wheel with a licensed adult--outside of school. That means parents must get off butts and bond with the new driver!

So today we went for the first drive. I took her to a partially empty parking lot and first showed her that you don't have to have your foot on the accelerator for the car to move---idle speed. Why? Because last night one of the instructors said that if a driver is having problems with curves, he'll not allow them to touch the accelerator around corners and she didn't understand why he'd do this, she thought the car would just stop. Now, she understands that the car can keep moving without any action on the accelerator.

In the parking lot, I had her practice turns...we did a serpentine chain up and down the empty lanes. When I felt she'd done well, then we went the whole length of the lanes, where cars were parked and people were walking so she could get used to watching for movement.

We then moved into the 2-lane residential street. She does the newbie listing right and I'd have to tell her to move left, but she did pretty well. She stops short on the stop signs/traffic lights, but I'd rather her have more room than in the middle of an intersection--again, that's just experience.

She wanted to drive to work, which includes a 4 lane highway/street which I thought would be the worst(although we limited the dreaded "Ogden" stretch to less than a half mile), but no...the real challenge was after we crossed the tracks. See, we live in an area that sometimes saw growth without consequence...such as premium condos that have no service area, no place for trucks to unload...except for on the 2 lane street...on our side...why, oh WHY today???? 

So, she slows down and stops behind the truck cuz there were people who had the audacity to be on the street when MY GRANDDAUGHTER WAS TRYING TO LEARN! Evil people...and we waited...and we waited...I told her that she needed to shift more to the left...she drifted a bit, but went more forward---still a good 2-3 feet off of the bumper, but half the car was still blocked by the truck. I asked her if she was ok if I told her when to go, she gave an emphatic, "YES!" So, finally I saw an opening, I told her hard left...and then I watched as we were still precariously close to the truck and started screaming, "LEFT! LEFT@! LEFT!"....we passed within inches of that truck....but we passed.

She was still cool, we took the "back way" to her job, except for the last 1/2 mile and then we did Ogden, which was uneventful.  I told her she did very well, but we have to work on passing skills. Where's the vodka when you need it?

Tonight, when I picked her up from work, she told me that her heart was in her throat all the way to work! I told her that she had fooled me...and that's good because, again, she did a good job. And I think its a great time for me to have a driver...driving Ms. Gram is just fine.