COMING IN HOT!
They say that you can’t teach someone who doesn’t want to be taught.
I would add that you can’t be taught by someone who doesn’t want to teach.
And I really, really did NOT want to be the parent-teacher for our teen drivers.
For one thing, I did not have applicable personal experience to draw on. My recollections of learning to drive are hazy. There was an in-class course where the first thing we learned was that you only had to sign in to get the accreditation. You didn’t need to stay. Half the class would sign in, then take off to the mall. I don’t know if I stayed or not - an indication of what I did/did not learn there. I have zero memory of in-car lessons. I can only assume that any instructor would have been good for a story or two. Since there are no stories – I suspect there was no instructor. And when would the instruction have occurred? Back then, you could take your driver’s test immediately after getting your learner’s permit. So, at 16 years plus a day, we all started going to the test center.[1] We would take the test, and fail, and repeat until eventually we passed. Our tests were basically our lessons.[2] This was not the best way to learn how to drive, nor, as it turns out, to teach others to drive.
The second problem was that I have nerves of Jello. Within thirty seconds of my first outing with our eldest, I pulled the rip cord. “Nope. Sorry. Not happening. You are going to have to ask you father.” Sometimes one of the kids would be desperate enough to ask me to take them driving. Compelled by parental-duty I would go, but it was always a net-negative experience for all parties. Truly unhelpful things I did include:
- Cover my eyes and duck into the wheel well.
- Slam my hand, brace-for-impact style, on the dashboard.
- White knuckle the door handle in preparation for a stunt roll.
- Madly pump an imaginary passenger-side brake. (manifesting?)
- Scream. Out loud.
- Get mad at the kids for scaring me.
- Then, get defensive when they call me out on my dramatics:
Them: “You are not helping!”
Me: “I told you not to ask me to take you driving!”
Back at the house, I would greet solid ground like I was emerging from a perfect storm - mumbling a token “Great job!” before passing out in a pool of cold sweats. The only thing I was good for was setting up garbage cans so they could practice parallel parking. Even then I couldn’t be in the car. I would hide inside house, ears attuned to any tell-tale CRUNCH sounds (followed by angry neighbour sounds).
The biggest hurdle was the teen who didn’t (still doesn’t) like driving. (True quote: “I can’t wait to get my license, so I never have to drive again.”) The Friday before her first in-car test, her instructor called to give us a heads-up. Exact words: “Let me commend you on raising a lovely daughter. Unfortunately, she will fail her test”. Never one to back down from a challenge, her dad approached it like a business problem: “Walk us through what has to happen to get this done.” Turns out that what one does to learn how to pass your driver’s test is the same thing one does to learn how to do anything: consult YouTube. Every test route on the planet has been logged, complete with soundtrack (“turn right here", “merge left”), by clever GoPro-savvy teens. So, after 48 hours of driving the test route on repeat, the day of reckoning comes. The test is at 8:00am. At 8:01am, I get a call asking: “Where is the license plate sticker?” Turns out it had fallen off.[3] The tester failed her before she even turned on the ignition. Even in an administrative role, I had lined her up for failure.
In the end “we” got the kids successfully through the 10-part permit process with an 80:20 pass/fail rate (which is above average).[4] But as is often the way with parenting, just when you complete lap 200 in a NASCAR race, the finish line moves. Drivers’ Education - and the associated maternal terror - doesn’t stop when your child successfully earns their two-part IDs. Shiny new license in hand, they now embark on the trial-and-error learning phase where they have to figure out everything that wasn’t included on the 10-block test loop. This became apparent within five minutes of our eldest getting her license. She rounded up her siblings and set off to the mall downtown. Ignoring my “Park in the outside lot!” suggestion/plea, they discovered the hard way the joys of old underground parking garages combined with oversized vehicles covered in Thule accessories. They returned to the house in tears (probably feeling much like I had during my teaching attempts).
After years of driving, you forget how many things you learned “on the job”. I have received phone calls from behind the wheel of a moving car for everything from (alarmingly) “How do I turn on the windshield wipers?” to (hilariously) “Can I use a credit card at the tollbooth?” (in a city, 16 hours away, that I have never driven in). There are so many things they have never experienced: first torrential rainstorm; first snow storm; first black ice; first high wind; first accident; first summer windshield fluid meets -20-degree day; first running out of gas/charge; first flat tire; first cop-stop; first time “maximum clearance” meant…The list is endless. These speed-bumps are approached in three ways – all nerve-wracking for parents.
Many teen drivers have a false sense of expertise. Hands at 10 and 2 quickly morphs into the two-finger hook and palm wheeling through a Tokyo Drift. The detailed knowledge of the Demerit Point Scale is now applied to a game of Speed-Ticket odds. They proudly report on “making good time” or driving 10 hours straight. As a parent, unless you are Jos Verstappen, these statements are not entirely reassuring. Other teen drivers have the Uber Passenger mentality. These are the drivers who, after being driven the exact same route to school every day for ten years, have no idea how to navigate it themselves. The road activity awareness of an Uber Passenger teen is on par to the engagement by a Bubble tea order delivered by Uber-EATS. Experts at “taking over the AUX”, these teens are primarily concerned with tunes (not tunes and maps – just tunes). Don’t get me wrong, I am a BIG believer in the value of a good Dakar Rally style navigator/snack deliverer. But learning to anticipate the countless Super Mario style hazards that may spring up “out of nowhere” (ex. oil slick/lava/Thwomp/Super Thwomp) requires building mind/muscle memory over time. Newly minted Passenger-drivers are still on Screen One: constantly surprised, constantly mildly freaking out. And then there is the most disconcerting of the teen driver options: the Combo. The Combo driver that is raring to take on Mario’s arch nemesis Bowser, while simultaneously asking “What is a Bowser?”.[5]
As with all “adulting”, learning to drive, or more to the point, learning to BE a Driver, is a continuous, lifelong learning curve. They will figure it out - mostly on their own, in their own time, with a little help from AI safety features and roadside Auto Assistance. And, as with all parenting, even if you are a good teacher, you can only take them so far.
After that you just cross your fingers, wait for the phone call, and track them on Find My Phone like a powerless guardian angel/stalker e-sport spectator.
[1] A mini world of re-created urban streets, with no actual buildings, cars, pedestrians or even squirrels. AKA: a parking lot.
[2] This was, of course, insane. And, I suspect, apocryphal. I also recall having the opinion that 2 drivers with learner permits = 1 legit driver. This, in 1980s teen-math, made sense. It is undoubtedly equally fictional - a story, based on a joke, that solidified into revisionist history.
[3] The sticker system got discontinued about three weeks later. Don’t get me started.
[4] Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum, my 85 year old mother “graduated top of her class” from her seniors’ driving test on the basis that she was the only one there without a walker.
[5] For those of you asking, “What is a Bowser?”, Bowser is “the evil Koopa that takes over the Mushroom Kingdom and kidnaps Princess Peach”. I trust that helped.