By Esther Baird
First published in the Chronicle & Transcript Aug 25, 2020
Hey there Regular Readers, it’s been a while. We’ve been living out of state at our family camp in the Adirondacks the last three months and basically staying off the grid. I’m emerging now both because the real world beckons with school supply lists (such as they are for fall 2020) and because I have an urgent matter to discuss with you.
Did you know that every single day children, mere babies, turn 16 and go from not being allowed to drive giant hunks of metal at deadly speeds, to still children, still babies, only with permits that do allow them to legally drive on the very same roads that you and I drive on?
How do I know this shocking news? Because we are now the parents of one such 16 year old.
Sure, we paid for the formal driving school. And our daughter sat through Drivers Ed classes (on Zoom) where she learned about blood alcohol levels, driving rules and signs, plus a curious lesson on road rage that involved a story about a priest and a crossbow. The class taught her all the things she needed to pass her permit test and so when she turned 16 she passed it. Voila!
You know what the class didn’t teach her? Any guesses? Anyone!? Oh, that’s right, it didn’t teach her how to drive. It didn’t put her in a car or even near a car.
Yes, she has to accumulate 12 hours of ‘behind the wheel’ instruction with a driving school instructor. But before she does that, she’s supposed to begin accumulating 40 driving hours with a parent.
“But shouldn’t the instructor be your first teacher, with the override steering wheel and brake?” I asked my daughter.
“Nope. You are supposed to do that so that they can teach me the harder stuff.”
Harder than not dying!? Harder than not crashing the family’s main source of transportation? Harder than seeing your own mother dissolve into a full panic attack when her long and storied life flashes by her eyes?
It felt like a flawed system.
So we began at the Topsfield Fairground parking lot where the worst thing would be to accidentally drive into that giant puddle-field on the southern edge.
“The brake will feel touchier than you expect,” I told her from the far back row where I was relegated so as not to be an ‘emotional distraction’ while my husband showed her the ropes.
“What do you mean?” she said as she allowed the car to roll forward for the first time. I waited.
Then she slammed on the brakes, we hurtled light years into the future before being sucked backwards like human yo-yos into our seats.
“That,” I replied drily.
Harder than whiplash while only going only 5 mph!?
But the real driving lessons came on the mountain roads of our camp town. Imagine the twisting roads of Boxford, or 1A through Ipswich and Hamilton, but instead of ‘thickly settled’ with speed limits of 25-35 mph, they are primary access roads through mountain passes with speed limits of 55 mph.
Harder than single lane, curving, mountain roads at highway speeds!?
“I keep wanting to center myself in the lane,” my daughter said as we whipped by the cliff-like ledge down to the lake from the higher mountain road. I smiled warmly, while simultaneously gripping my passenger door and physically trying to pull the car back into the center of the lane.
“You don’t say?” I answered. “Yeah, it’s tricky but it’s the car that’s centered, not you. A little left. A little more. LEFT! FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE, GO LEFT!”
Harder than buzz-cutting all the foliage and bushes along the roads?
But, these are milestones that, I suppose, are the stuff of parenting and things are slowly improving. She’s gone through our small town when it’s full of masked-tourists who remain blissfully unaware that COVID-19 was not the only lurking threat. We’ve also handled a rotary, which I realized was less about our daughter and more dependent on everyone else knowing the rules of a rotary, something I question deeply (I give you the Beverly rotary at Brimbal Avenue as Exhibit A).
Harder than Boston, or better yet, New York drivers!?
I no longer grip the door handle and try to pull the car to center. Mostly. I mean, perhaps only half the time. And maybe that’s what this whole system is meant to do: slowly produce calm parents, I mean, good drivers. But some things, like pandemics, social upheaval and newly minted 16 year olds, take time, patience and a lot of hard praying.