I learned to drive in South Florida - where there are no hills, no snow, almost no parallel parking, etc. Our biggest challenge (aside from all the other woefully unprepared drivers around us) is driving in the rain. Quite a few people don't bother with driver's ed.
It wasn't until I started binge watching Canada's Worst Driver that I realized how little I, and most of the drivers around me, actually know - or how common it is for people in other places to go to some sort of driving school.
One Reddit user asked:
So ... turns out driver's ed is pretty crucial - and the instructors are stressed out heros. Here's why.
The Story Of L
alicia silverstone oops GIFGiphyNot an instructor. However I did have the opportunity to share the driving range with a several students after school. One girl, we will call her "L."
L had mistaken the shifter for the turning signal. A lot. She ruined the transmission on the driving range.
You know how high school students can be. Word spread - quickly. Unfortunately, poor L and her bad driving was the favorite subject for a semester.
She had to start the class over while most of us moved on.
L's driving was so bad that it became a topic with the teachers as well. She was having a hard time with the shifter and the turning signals again. She kept mistaking one for the other over and over.
She ruined another one of the cars. With the driver's ed instructor in the car. During her driving test!
We fast forward to the end of the year and we are about ready to go crazy for summer break. Word gets out that L had finally finished everything and got her license!
We honestly never thought the day would come. Her parents were so happy they bought her a brand new Volkswagen.
We are two days away from summer break and I am sitting in the cafeteria when I hear a mixture of laughter and "oh no!" I walk over to join the conversation and...
"L took her friends to lunch in her new blue Volkswagen.. guess what happened??? She pulled into the intersection and mixed up the turn signal and the shifter again!"
We saw the tow truck pulling up to take it to the shop.
Bro
I'm not a "drivers ed" teacher, per say, but I did teach my brother to drive. He immediately forgot he was in reverse and backed into a tree at 40 mph.
He sort of spooked and floored it, thinking he was hitting the brake. And then panicked and hit the clutch.
Fun hospital trip.
- iph0ne
Ruining The Shrubbery
Was giving driving lessons to a girlfriend's mid-20s son who hadn't gotten a license yet. One rainy weekend morning I wanted to teach him skid control skills. We went to a wide empty street in an industrial area and I demonstrated a couple of times how to cut the wheel one way briefly then whip it the other way while applying the parking brake to cause a slide.
He wasn't getting the initial preloading the wheels by initially turning the opposite direction you intend to skid, thus wasn't setting up good slides to work with. I told him to cut the wheel a little more to the right initially before cutting left and starting the skid.
We got going about 40mph and reached the starting point. THIS time, he turned the wheel hard right and held it there. The car jumped the curb, miraculously threaded the needle between a hydrant and mature tree, then crossed the sidewalk and went bumping through the garden along a block-long set-back wall. He didn't brake.
Comically, groomed shrub after shrub disappeared beneath the hoodline, to pop up alive but more ragged for the wear behind us. He still didn't brake.
After a time I said, "OK... You can apply the brake any time, so we can stop running over the shrubs!"
That was the last driving lesson. Years later I'm pretty sure he still doesn't have a license.
Not The Wal-Mart Parking Lot
Not a drivers ed teacher, but my drivers ed teacher told me this story: He instructed a girl who had gotten a perfect score for her permit and a 100% on her drivers test.
Once she got on the roads, though, it was a totally different she would just stop whenever a stressful situation occurred.
She had gotten 40 out of her 50 required behind-the-wheel hours (I live in Illinois) in the Wal-Mart parking lot. When she went to take her road test, it was rainy and cold. She was not, at all, prepared.
Her car skidded into the lane of oncoming traffic, and instead of trying to steer back into her lane, she just screamed and covered her eyes. The instructor slammed on the brake, but the truck in the oncoming lane also had to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting the car.
That truck skidded into the original lane causing a double collision. She didn't get her license.
Nothing Much
My best driver's ed story is as the student. The instructor zoned out a little and his foot was pressing the clutch on his side.
I'm free wheeling down a hill. My instructions were to not brake and instead to demonstrate gear control down a hill. I was in gear with my foot off the clutch as instructed.
Then I noticed his foot is on his clutch and I don't actually have full control of the vehicle.
"Going a bit fast down this hill aren't we?" he asked.
"Yep."
"What are ya gonna do about it?"
"Nothing much."
"Why?"
"Well until you take your foot off your clutch pedal there's not much I can do!"
"Oh!" Foot comes off.
"I guess I passed that bit, hmm?"
The Best Part
Excited Lets Go GIF by HondaGiphyI actually was an instructor in my state for a private school.
There was one girl who was here from the Philippines and was terrifying.
She only had a vague understanding of American traffic laws and would often be looking at the wrong side of the road for signs and such.
Believe it or not she ended up acing her road test after terrifying me for the few days I was her instructor.The terrifying near-crash experiences were actually some of the best parts of the job in a way.
Being able to respond quickly and stop an accident without flipping your lid and scarring a pupil is crucial, but the adrenaline that comes from near misses keeps it interesting and gives you stories to tell.
Oh wellsies
Speeding Towards A Lumber Truck
My driving instructor told me a terrifying story about this. He was with a young guy and everything was going good until he got off the highway.
He got in the turn off lane, but didn't slow down. He didn't even try to slow down. He was speeding towards a large truck carrying lumber, the ones where the lumber hangs off the back a bit.
He yelled at the kid and he slammed on the brakes, stopping with lumber just inches from the windshield.
He had been to war, but he said that this was the scariest experience in his life.
The guy didn't get his license in the end.
The Alignment
We were taking turns driving in the drivers ed car, and one of the other students drove off a relatively short bridge (about 1.5 - 2 foot).
The car somehow managed to survive the fall with minimal damage, but the alignment was knocked so far off that the wheel was literally turned half way to keep the car going straight.
A Full Minute
My friend's sister rear ended a police car literal seconds after pulling out of the DMV. She wasn't even in the car for a full minute.
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I update my status much less often these days...
"Posting about almost every aspect of your life on social media."
"I posted some pretty cringe sh*t as a kid that is still floating around somewhere, and that was before social media became big."
"I can't imagine what it's going to be like now."- video_2
facebook update GIF by Christina LuGiphyParenting should be a personal choice.
"I hope mommy bloggers who post constant pics and details of their children."
"Robbing children of privacy for likes and money is sickening."
"Don’t even get me started on ones with sick kids."- nikki_therese
Everyone was watching it... back then...
"I think people are just starting to regret naming their kids Danerys and Sansa."- Wazula42
game of thrones boom GIFGiphyFelt "kute"... will regret later
"Quirky misspelling of names."- Virghia
Natural beauty is destined for a comeback
"Too much plastic surgery, fillers and Botox on young people."- factchecker8515
"Those eyebrows."
"Holy sh*t, there’s no way that your kids won’t be horrified by those weird eyebrows."- Delica
Eyebrow Raise GIFGiphyHere's hoping actions will one day have consequences
"Ignoring criminal acts by politicians."- Max-lower-back-Payne
Contemporary views of education
"The destruction of public education."
"Squeezing and outright sabotage of public schools, prohibitive costs for secondary education."
"The normalization of being undereducated either through apathy or because of forces outside your control."
"The idea that opinion is equal to fact and that sticking to your original viewpoint is heroic."
"'Yeah, your studies may say that, but this is how I FEEL about it'" and similar arguments."
"The reason we are no longer a minor species of omnivorous hunter-gatherers is our ability to pass along knowledge to others."
"Each generation building on the achievements of prior generations is the path to progress in health, quality of life, equality, production and so much more."
"Worse yet, technology now is at a level where if the masses are uneducated, they are also powerless."
"Small groups of people with specific knowledge have become outrageously powerful and this gap in individual power will only get worse with advances in fields like AI and robotics."
"If we allow whole generations to grow up undereducated, it will be very difficult for them to understand and affect their world."
"I feel the exponential growth of wealth gaps across the world is a symptom of this deliberate enforced ignorance."- GrymEdm
Some things we'll laugh about, other's we'll look back on in disdain and horror.
And Ironically, we'll probably be enjoying another current fad which will be outdated in another five years.
Having no social life comes with its advantages.
"I'm not very social even without a pandemic."- phorq
Season 5 Friends Tv Show GIF by FriendsFear of big crowds... and everything else.
"Social anxiety."- mungiga123
"Agoraphobia."
"Extreme health anxiety."
"It sucks since its unnerving but I took every precaution in the book to not get sick."- _Lost__Light
Horror Reaction GIF by SpongeBob SquarePantsGiphyYou tell me!
"I really have no idea."
"I've been on building sites with people taking zero precautions, worked in London for a while, delivered into hospitals during lockdown, been surrounded by people who then go on to have covid a few days later."
"Not a clue how I haven't had it yet."- sammykoejoe
Best perk of a home office!
"Working at home and having no social life or sex."- I-P-Freely4ever
Pure, dumb luck!
'Neither me or my kids have been hit."
"The secret, I have no idea besides lure luck."- Hugh-Mahn
St Patricks Day Illustration GIFGiphyI can stay perfectly entertained at home!
"Don't go out."- To_enrich_my_life_17
Dilligence...or common sense?
"Wear masks, go out when you need to, get all the covid shots you are entitled to, stay away from ill people."- kitchen_clinton
The Grand Mask GIF by The Grand HealthcareGiphyOne can't help but sympathize with those too afraid to partake in outings and activities they enjoyed prior to the pandemic.
But hopefully the fact that they've avoided catching an illness which has taken the lives of over six million people worldwide is the comfort they need to feel good about their decisions.