how my mom learned to drive
Nov. 5th, 2020 11:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kareinaWas just telling this story in a Slack Channel conversation, and thought it was worth copying, elaborating and editing up a bit to post here...
My mother, who was born in 1940, got her first drivers licence when she was 12 years old. It was a "Farm Licence" for driving on the property as part of normal work on the farm, because her father had injured his back and couldn't do those tasks anymore. She got that Licence without needing to take a driving test. When she got old enough for a real driver's licence she turned in the farm licence and got the real one, without needing to take a test When she moved from Michigan to Washington DC she turned in her Michigan driver's licence and got a local one. She continued just trading them in when she moved somewhere new for many years. It wasn't till she moved to Australia, when she was 48 years old that she had to take her first driving test.
I told the above story to a friend today, who commented on the fact that most kid's don't get to drive that young because one is more likely to make judgement mistakes leading to a serious accident at 12 than at 18, and that 18 is more likely to have an accident than 24, etc...
This, of course, reminded me of mom's story about the first time she tried driving, which kinda underscores that point...
It was an old Model-A Ford. Her dad took her out into the field with it, and showed her how to turn it on, and what to do, and she started driving, slowly, with a white-knuckle death-grip on the steering wheel, across the field. Then, as she started approaching the ditch at the field edge she panicked. She couldn't move her arms enough to steer away from the ditch, she couldn't move her legs enough to transfer her foot to the break, she just sat there, panicking, watching the ditch get closer and closer. At the last second her father calmly reached over and disconnected the exposed wire, which caused the engine to quit, and the car stopped just before the edge of the ditch.
I am not certain how much time elapsed between that lesson and the next, but I believe the fact that her dad was able to prevent the imminent destruction the first time helped build her confidence for the second attempt.
My mother, who was born in 1940, got her first drivers licence when she was 12 years old. It was a "Farm Licence" for driving on the property as part of normal work on the farm, because her father had injured his back and couldn't do those tasks anymore. She got that Licence without needing to take a driving test. When she got old enough for a real driver's licence she turned in the farm licence and got the real one, without needing to take a test When she moved from Michigan to Washington DC she turned in her Michigan driver's licence and got a local one. She continued just trading them in when she moved somewhere new for many years. It wasn't till she moved to Australia, when she was 48 years old that she had to take her first driving test.
I told the above story to a friend today, who commented on the fact that most kid's don't get to drive that young because one is more likely to make judgement mistakes leading to a serious accident at 12 than at 18, and that 18 is more likely to have an accident than 24, etc...
This, of course, reminded me of mom's story about the first time she tried driving, which kinda underscores that point...
It was an old Model-A Ford. Her dad took her out into the field with it, and showed her how to turn it on, and what to do, and she started driving, slowly, with a white-knuckle death-grip on the steering wheel, across the field. Then, as she started approaching the ditch at the field edge she panicked. She couldn't move her arms enough to steer away from the ditch, she couldn't move her legs enough to transfer her foot to the break, she just sat there, panicking, watching the ditch get closer and closer. At the last second her father calmly reached over and disconnected the exposed wire, which caused the engine to quit, and the car stopped just before the edge of the ditch.
I am not certain how much time elapsed between that lesson and the next, but I believe the fact that her dad was able to prevent the imminent destruction the first time helped build her confidence for the second attempt.
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Date: 2020-11-05 04:09 pm (UTC)