further reflections on driving

[dchenes]

I didn't have a driver's license until four years ago. Partly I hadn't needed one until then, and partly I'm scared of driving. I can do it, I have done it, I'm not terrible at it; but I don't particularly enjoy it.

I don't know why, but somewhere between learning to drive (the first time, when I was 17) and actually getting the license, I picked up a fear of causing a car accident. It takes me about half an hour to get over it. After that, when I haven't killed anybody, I relax. Unfortunately getting myself to relax when I'm driving really does take that long, so I hated pretty much every minute of the four ten-minute drives between home and the vet's office yesterday.

I know that the cure for this is to drive more, because for crying out loud, if the average 17-year-old can do this, so can I. That's how I passed my driver's test; I finally realized that the inspector's routine was designed to make 17-year-olds nervous, and I was 30 at the time, and therefore didn't have to fall for it. (It also helped that I had graduated from Kent State the month before, so I was feeling somewhat more invincible than usual.) But I'm not sure whether I need to just plain old Drive More, or whether I need some kind of lessons.

Comments

[ravennel.livejournal.com]

It sounds, in my ever-expert (hah!), free-and-worth-every-penny opinion, that for a start you might just need some more practice, and maybe some out-of-Insane-City-Traffic practice. (Because when one is already uncomfortable behind the wheel and paranoid about causing accidents, THAT shit sure as hell ain't gonna help!) If you'd like, you are welcome to come up and visit us in the good old N of H some weekend(s) and get in some driving practice in a nice old reliable Corolla, on roads and around other drivers who are slightly less insane than the ones in your neck of the woods, before deciding to invest in lessons. (I drove there for years, and there are still places--numerous ones--around your area that make me nervous as heck in which to drive. Ugh.)

[melopoeia.livejournal.com]

if it makes you feel any better, I'm even less comfortable driving I suspect. Also I didn't get my license until this past year.

If you want lessons, I know a *great* guy in Cambridge. Love Driving School.
$40 a lesson back when I was studying with him.