Driving - a lot harder than I thought

Originally posted to Xanga on February 17, 2008

I finished the torturous 33 hours of driver's education at the end of January, and I have 1/3 of a driver's license: a permit. Wewt for graduated licensing! So my dad took me for my first driving lesson . . . in the snow. We practiced turning and stuff in a tiny parking lot. It wasn't really real driving. Then, a week later, my dad took me for a second lesson, and we went on an actual road. I was driving for four minutes on RT 116 and when I went to make the turn onto RT 12 (did I mention I had a huge black pickup truck on my bumper? RI drivers get mad when people drive the speed limit.) I almost crashed into the guard rail.

Then, that night, I went with my mom to Whole Foods. (I bought this $20 moisturizer there that doesn't even work! But aside from that, I really love Whole Foods. Except their chips. Nasty.) We finish shopping and go out to the car, and she gets in the passenger side. And she wouldn't get out! I was really almost angry that she would even suggest I drive home all the way from Whole Foods when I'd had so little instruction actually behind the wheel. Never mind that I had almost crashed earlier that day. So she drove home. Except she stopped on RT 12 and insisted I drive home from there. "It's a straight line from here," she said. "C'mon, you can do that."

Apparently they don't understand. My parents don't seem to get that I have never driven before. I have had no instruction behind the wheel. And what comes as second nature to them is completely foreign and scary to me. It doesn't help that I have an aunt that won't drive. Part of me is paranoid of ending up like her, and part of me feels like this fear of driving is already inherent in my DNA. I don't trust myself behind the wheel, and I don't know what to do to remedy this.

Learning to drive simply isn't practical. Lame.