License To Drive
Ethan Adkins
Driving is a pretty normal part of life that we learn while growing up. Many people count down the days till they get their permit so they can start the practice, and even more count the days till their sixteenth birthday so they can finally get their long-awaited driver’s license. For me, however, I was the complete opposite, I tried to avoid driving at all costs.
Around three four weeks ago I started driving. This step in my young life has been one of the steps I was hoping to skip. Driving has always been horrifying to me. It’s not that I’m necessarily scared of the road or scared to get into and drive the car. It’s more of a fear of not being a good enough driver and getting into a fatal crash, like the ones we hear about on our local news channels. This fear over the safety of driving really started when I was young, when I would talk to my dad about driving.
When I was little, I always compared my dad to Marlin from Finding Nemo. He was always super concerned over my safety while doing things. While maybe annoying at times, I know that the notes of caution he put into me as a child have helped me be a lot safer when I’m doing anything.
My dad’s “subtle” notes of caution for things extend to things not just pertaining to driving. For example, while we were on our way to a water park, he told me of a news story he read where a kid got decapitated at that park’s sister park. While I have no clue if that’s true or not, it definitely made me think twice about goofing around and being even semi-irresponsible at water parks. He also heavily warned me not to go to trampoline parks. I would later break my leg at one when I snuck there while out with friends, so I guess he was right about that or whatever.
All of this led to nothing but pure fun for me when I told my parents that it was time that I needed to drive. My dad and I tried to put it off for as long as we could. He often told me before we started practicing that driving is the most dangerous thing we do each day and that I need a healthy respect for the road. I definitely, at the time, blew that off because why would a ten-year-old care about the road? I’m just trying to play a game on Mom’s phone. So after I told them it was time, my mom and I went and got my permit, and shortly after, my dad and I would start practicing.
First, we started with driving around our neighborhood, and I’ll admit, it was pretty rough. The first time I backed out of the driveway, I accidentally put my foot on the gas and almost went straight into the neighbor’s brick mailbox. After that incident, I didn’t get to back out or pull into the driveway for a long while. Going around the neighborhood that first time made me utterly terrified. I was just praying that somehow no one else would drive today or no kids would decide to play on the sidewalk near the road.
My overall driving that first time matched my nervousness and anxiety. I drove with super stiff arms on the wheel, and my motions were extremely jerky. I apparently also couldn’t keep in the middle of the road and would drive on either the left or right side of the road. For a while, we just stayed in the neighborhood. It was safe, familiar, I knew what all could happen, I felt confident. But then the day came. The day when my dad told me we were leaving the neighborhood for the first time and would drive to school.
Now granted, it was on a Saturday, so there was no school traffic around, so it was a pretty non-busy drive to our school. I was still nervous, though. I’m not going to give the exact way I go from my house to school for obvious reasons, but there are two ways I could go. The first way takes me by the Neighborhood Walmart, where I’d have to make a left turn at a four-way stop. The other way is a narrow, two-lane road that I like to call the scary back way.
On my first time on an actual road, I decided to go the Walmart way because I thought that was my safest course of action. When we got to the four-way stop, I was scared, there were actual cars on the road, who would’ve thought? I made my left turn; it was rough, but it was a turn, and I got into the middle of two lanes without actually being in one of them. Outside of almost hitting the neighbor’s mailbox that one time, this was probably the worst mistake I’ve made while driving. My dad, fairly enough, was not happy with that turn and told me for now we’re going the scary back way when I drive, which now made me happy to hear.
Once I got to the school, I pulled into the Aquatic Center parking lot, and my dad and I debriefed the drive there. Once we had fully talked about it all, we started practicing on the roads going around the school. At first, like I have been the whole time I’ve been driving, I was nervous going around the school. We would do this loop multiple times every few days for the next week or so, where I would drive to the school, do our loops, and then drive back.
On our latest driving lesson, we started learning how to park. We came up to the senior lot on our virtual day and practiced. I have to say, I have given my friends a lot of crap for their parking jobs, and after attempting to do it, I might need to roll back my critiques of them. Parking is a lot harder than I thought it would be, and I haven’t even started to learn how to parallel park. Most of my parking errors were that I would park way outside my line, or not pull up enough, or pull up too far.
My dad would then have me back out and try again. If I didn’t back out the exact way and was a hair too crooked, my dad naturally would go, “You just hit a car, you hit another one, you just hit a person.” We were in an empty parking lot, but I understood the message of what he was trying to say. Finally, after what felt like an hour, although it was maybe only twenty or thirty minutes, I hit a semi-decent parking job, and we decided to call it a day.
Driving is a pretty normal part of life. While a pretty cheesy simile but learning driving is like a bird learning to fly and fend for itself. Driving to me shows that I am ready for the real world especially as I branch out and go to college next year. I’m advancing as not just a kid in highschool but as an adult. And while I hate to admit it, even if I get yelled at and criticized at every turn, literally, learning how to drive also allows me to spend that ten minutes it takes me from my house to school with my dad, which even if it’s sappy, I do appreciate. I can proudly say that I am more confident on the road and one day maybe, I can get my license.
