Those of you who have taught your son or daughter to drive can probably relate. Those of you who are pre-driving teenagers can just look away. Those of you whose oldest child is under 15... Just You Wait!
Anyway, my child is learning to drive. Has her own permit. Got it awhile back, even. She's even driven to school -- with me at her side of course. There are laws, you know.
Well, for one reason or another, she has not been able to drive lately (or, I've come up with various excuses to not let her...). Anyway, it was time to let her at it again. Utah law says she needs 40 hours of driving with a parent before she can get a license. I believe she's keeping track of the time spent driving down to the second. Or at least rounded up to the next 1/4 minute...
So first thing she does is gets in and buckles up. (Good for her! The rest of you yung'uns should learn from this.) Then she tries to put the car in reverse. Except, umm, she needs to start the car first. Okay, once the car is started (a story there too, but not her fault) she guns the engine! She meant to put on the brake to put the car in gear, but forgot which pedal it was... So, okay, correct brake pedal depressed. Now, she puts the car in Drive to back out of the garage. Yes, Drive! As in, all-she'll-be-able-to-do-is-go-forward-about-12-inches-into-the-wall Drive!
After I finish freaking out (luckily, she still hadn't released the parking brake), and after she calms down from me freaking out, we finally back out of the garage and take a nice leisurely 45 minute drive downtown. She actually did pretty well except for the left-turn-episode, but that's a story for another day...
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all i can say is 'better you than me!' :o)
Amen to that AW! I'm so glad I don't have to go through this again for four more years. I got through driver number two without ever having to get in the car with him. Partly this was because his bio-mom allowed him to get his license without actually driving the 40 hours. This frustrated me, but I will confess I was happy I never had to participate in the training. I would have killed someone.
Driver number one liked to keep track of his hours like this: a five minute drive to school equalled one hour of practice driving (read: gunning engine, putting holes in carport walls, etc.). I frequently had to ask him how many hours he had, and then cut that in half in order to restore some semblance of integrity to the process.
Fun times, fun times. And now, four years (oh, shoot! I mean, two and a half--where did the time go??) of peace and quiet.
I have yet to teach a driver, because I am MUCH younger than all of you, and my oldest is only 10. However, it seems like just yesterday that my mom was teaching me how to drive. She was a little excitable (translation: She screamed. A lot.) and our car was a stick-shift. Good times. So, my friends taught me how to drive in their old beater cars (Cat's was actually held together with a rubber band and paper-clip). And when I stalled in the intersection right in front of the HS, they laughed, screamed (in a good way, though) and ducked down so no one would see them. I'm sad I have to wait 5 years - I'm actually looking forward to this! Bring it on!
Uh, yeah. I have one of those. On second thought, I have two of those!
I don't like Utah's laws...
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