How To Not Drive: A Tutorial

Optimist: someone who figures that taking a step backward after taking a step forward is not a disaster, it’s more like a cha-cha.

-Robert Brault

Driving, an act millions of Americans manage to complete in order to quickly transport themselves to and from their desired destinations, and it was my turn to become one of the millions. The road test, an activity infamous for bringing you to either the heights of elation, or the depths of despair, was the task I had dreaded that day, and my time was fast approaching. I had practiced for hours on end, I knew I was ready, but, as there always seems to be before a large event, the butterflies in my stomach began to extend their wings.

It’s okay to have butterflies. Just get them to fly in formation.

-Francisco Lopez

Pulling into the DMV is when the realization of what was about to happen hit me. In less than an hour, I would either have been granted one of the most searched for freedoms among teenagers, or be disappointed to no end. My hands were sweaty as I entered the building, and my hours of practice parallel parking and driving through busy city streets suddenly seemed insubstantial, or at least insufficient, for the momentous task I was about to undertake. Sitting for half an hour in the waiting room did my already jumpy nerves no good, and my mind began running at a thousand miles per hour.

When my time had finally come they called those scheduled for a road test to come into a small office room, we were given instructions on what we were expected to do during the exam, and then they sent us out to our cars. My mother gave me a confident smile as I made my way out to our car. I tried to settle my mind. Once I was in the car, I began to talk myself through what I knew I was going to do, remembering the tips my father had given me for parallel parking, and thinking of my mother telling me that even if I failed my first try, that there is always a second. The instructor soon joined me in the car, and the pre-test inspection went perfect. Shortly thereafter we were out on the street and heading toward the obstacle that stops many license obtaining hopefuls, the parallel park.

I had spent the past week digging up my dirt driveway with the wheels of my mom’s car. Practice for the parallel park was the most common advice I had gotten from those with their licenses, and so practice I did. This excessive practice had burned the precise hand and foot movements into my brain, and the results of my parallel on my road test showed I had practiced. I was filled with elation, yes, I knew that the test wasn’t over, but I had gotten what is most consistently the hardest part of the test out of the way, and had done it with precision for that matter. The only tasks I had left was to drive around town for a few minutes, obey the rules of the road, and complete a 50 foot backup, all actions I could do in my sleep.

Don’t practice until you get it right. Practice until you can’t get it wrong.

-Unknown.

The driving was going perfect when we pulled over for the 50 foot backup, he gave me directions for how far he wanted me to go, and it was as quick and easy as I had known it would be. Again, I was filled with joy, the only two things I had been worried about were over, and we were now heading back to the DMV, where I would be given my temporary license, I was sure of it.

Too sure of it, as I came to find out.

I saw the stop sign, that I could not miss, but it appears that giant yellow buses have a knack for hiding themselves behind thick foliage, and that, that I missed. I turned into the intersection and was taken by surprise, there had been no bus there before, but suddenly, there it was. And so was I. The honk of the loud bus horn drove me to action, and I stomped on the breaks, an action that stopped me dead in the intersection, with a scared bus driver pulling away behind me.

Oh, bother.

-Winnie the Poo

I was distraught. The examiner didn’t have to say anything, I knew I had failed. The drive back to the DMV was the longest of my life, as I awaited having to see the disappointment on my friends and families faces, as well as that which I would experience over the next few weeks. We pulled into the parking lot and the examiner explained to me why I had failed. I knew he was right, I had messed up, but I was still angry and resentful toward him.

Over the coming weeks as I awaited to be rescheduled my parents and I had time to reflect on what had brought me to fail on my first test. They explained that there were two was to look at it, I could be angry and resentful, as I was currently feeling, or I could look at it as a helpful lesson. “What if there had been no bus?” they asked me, “you would have passed, but maybe you would then have done the same mistakes down the road, only in front of a tractor trailer truck, or someone who wasn’t paying attention and didn’t honk their horn.”

I took their ideas to heart, but was disappointed nonetheless.

• 

Flash forward another few weeks, and my second attempt at joining what I saw as the elite driving club was approaching. I practiced the same as I had before, and when the day came, as what confident that I would pass, but 5 times as nervous as I had been the first time. Plenty of people don’t pass the first time, but I was sure that I didn’t want to belong to the club of the third timers.

Sitting in the waiting room was more nervous than before, and when they called me into the office for the second time that year, I began to sweat. The same process I had been through in my mind previously began to happen again, but I chose to take control of my emotions, rather than the other way around, and was able to calm my nerves before we began. The examiner walked out to the car I was waiting in and my heart dropped, it was the same one I had failed on my first attempt. When he entered the car he partially recognized my face, and asked if he had had me before. Not wanting to lie I told him yes, but I didn’t remind him of how I had failed, and he didn’t seem to remember.

The test went the same as before, my parallel park was perfect, along with my 50 foot backup, and then I realized something. He was taking me on the exact same route we had gone on before; we were going back to that fateful intersection. My breathing quickened as we approached, and my senses heightened, but my nervousness was unfounded, as a passed perfectly through the intersection. I let out a relieved sigh. “That’s where I failed with you last time” I confessed. He chuckled and said that he remembered, and he was sure that I would remember it too, and I continued to drive. After a few seconds of silence he brought up how he had felt bad that he had to fail me, as I had done everything perfectly except for that one turn. This prompted me to divulge to him what my parents had talked about with me. “Well my parents and I saw two ways to look at it” I stated, “I could look at it as a horrible occurrence, and be angry and resentful about not passing, or I could look at it as a valuable lesson. After I got over the initial disappointment, I decided to look at it in the later of the two ways.” He seemed impressed with this and I must admit I was surprised by his response. I had taken him for a grumpy old man in the light of failing my test, but it turned out he was anything but! He talked about how he was glad that I chose to look at the incident in the “glass half full light” and we talked on the way back to the DMV about life, people, and family, and it was then that I realized; I had been the one in the wrong.

• 

I was sure of it. Too sure of it as I cam to find out

-Me

My angered and resentful perspective had blinded me to the truth, I had been the problem, and more specifically my attitude towards the whole incident had put me in a position in which I had judged a man’s entire personality based on the dismal circumstances in which I forced him to be. When allowed to open up in a relaxed and happy atmosphere it turned out my instructor was a deeply passionate man about his job and his family, had strong morals, and was ever so friendly.

What I learned on that day was two separate, but equally important lessons. The first is to never look at an incident through the gaze of regret and shame, it has already happened and no amount of rethinking will change it. The second lesson is this. People are incredibly complicated, and trying to interpret one person’s entire psyche based on one interaction is unfair, and often, as described in my experience, leads to inaccurate results. So from this experience I feel as though I have taken the age old adage, “never judge a book by its cover.”

Photo by SchuminWeb on Foter.com / CC BY-SA

Photos on Foter.com