My husband was a Driving Instructor and Examiner.
Oct 06 '01
The Bottom Line Only drive where you feel comfortable. If you are 85 years old, please leave the interstate driving to another. Better still, fly.
Here in America almost everyone has a car and drives. This is not the case in England. There it is a privilege to drive. Let me explain .....
I was not very confident when I tried to drive a 'Mini car' in England. This is about the smallest sub-compact car you can purchase. My husband had died and I had this manual (stick shift) car sitting in my driveway.
When I met Len, my husband of the past 21 years, he was a Driving Instructor, with the County. He sat with me and tried to teach me. That was not a good idea. I then had lessons from a driving school. I was unable to grasp the art of driving. Well Len was not going to give up on me so we traded the manual for an automatic. I learned to drive in my car, and found this to be really easy. I took my test, in the automatic, and passed the automatic test. This meant I could never drive manual cars with this license.
After a couple of years I was ready to learn on a manual car again. After taking several lessons, costing me hundreds of dollars, I passed the test. If the test is failed at any point, the fee is still paid, and a new date approximately 3 months later is given to you.
I have known people taking the test 5 to 10 times over a 2 to 4 year period. Costing more than $1,000.
What does this have to do with How to drive.
I think a lot. When we arrived in America, we had English and International driver's licenses. Our test was driving around the building and doing a parallel park. Less than 3 minutes. I do understand that most people go out onto the roads, but the test is much easier than England. If you fail here, in America, you do not pay anything.
By having lessons with a 'professional' you are taught to have hands on the wheel, at 10 and 2 o'clock. The correct driving position. You learn to check the mirror, then use your indicators/flashers to show your intentions, finally do the turn etc. These all seems very basic, but have you been driving recently and watched people with phones, food, drinks etc. in one hand. Others just cut in front of you without any warning signs. Sure you have.
I drive most days and take a defensive view of it. We live in a retiree area and I expect people to back out of their driveways without looking. I hold back and wait for them to do so. When they realize what they have done, I get a smile and a wave. How could I get mad at people like this.
We have a 15 mile an hour speed limit in our sub-division and I put my cruise control on, to ensure I do not go above it. The last thing I want to do is knock down an elderly person walking in my road.
Once out on the normal roads keeping up with the traffic is essential. Otherwise people will tailgate you. I tend to do 3 or 4 miles above the limit, but still find the majority of people overtaking me. This is their choice and if they get a ticket so be it.
We have a busy road that is hard to avoid. US19. There are bumper stickers saying 'I survived driving on US19'. I would suggest that the elderly use side roads. They tend to stay in the middle of 3 lanes and annoy everyone else. This is when accidents often occur, when people both sides of them try to get around them.
Final thoughts.
We all want to be on time. The best and safest way is to leave a few minute early. This way we can stay calm, overtake when it is safe to do so, and not take risks. People who take risks will eventually get caught out. Some unfortunately are not around to tell us about it.
Don't be a statistic. Drive well and be safe.
~Susan~
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