sam
01-13-2009, 08:52 AM
I'm 41 years old and have never learned to drive. I've gotten learners permits and taken lessons from friends and professionals but I've just never been able to calm down and absorb the basics. My biggest and most frequent mistake is panicking and forgetting which pedal is which. (I managed to run a girlfriend's car into a tree doing that, but fortunately we weren't going that fast no one was hurt.) I've been a front seat passenger in two car-totalling accidents, and once saw EMTs lift a severed head out of a car that wrecked right in front of my home. It's hard to not remember that everyone responsible for these accidents was, just by virtue of having earned a license, a more capable and experienced driver than I am.
I've been self employed my entire adult life, and don't need to travel much, so I've always been able to rely on a combination of friends, family, taxis, and public transportation, but I've started riding a bike recently, too. Mostly on the sidewalk or on residential streets. Never in traffic. Unfortunately, biking is scary, too. I'm constantly freezing up and forgetting the rules of the road, or panicking and losing my balance, and I've come within a couple of feet causing accidents at least twice that I know of, but the fear isn't nearly as bad as driving. Being able to get off the bike and just walk through intersections is a real comfort.
Despite all this, I want to get back behind the wheel and see if I can actually learn how to pilot a vehicle. Unfortunately, I'm having trouble finding an instructor who'll work with my anxiety as well as my inexperience. I'm convinced if I can just get enough practice in parking lots and dirt roads, I can develop some useful muscle memory and convince my overheating brain that I really *can* do this safely. I don't have any friends I'd feel comfortable doing it with, and every instructor I've hired so far is way, way too eager to just get me out on surface streets. "You're gonna have to learn to drive next to cars at some point! Might as well be now!" At a hundred bucks a lesson, you'd think they'd be the ones pushing for a slower approach, but that hasn't been the case. It's ridiculous. One instructor had only recently come out of a body cast from a crash he'd gotten in to with a student. She (the student) drove out into a busy intersection and panicked- just froze up. They were t-boned and a bunch of his ribs were shattered in the impact. He asked me if I'd be able to hit the gas if he told me to floor it. I told him I honestly didn't know. And right now, I still don't.
I've been self employed my entire adult life, and don't need to travel much, so I've always been able to rely on a combination of friends, family, taxis, and public transportation, but I've started riding a bike recently, too. Mostly on the sidewalk or on residential streets. Never in traffic. Unfortunately, biking is scary, too. I'm constantly freezing up and forgetting the rules of the road, or panicking and losing my balance, and I've come within a couple of feet causing accidents at least twice that I know of, but the fear isn't nearly as bad as driving. Being able to get off the bike and just walk through intersections is a real comfort.
Despite all this, I want to get back behind the wheel and see if I can actually learn how to pilot a vehicle. Unfortunately, I'm having trouble finding an instructor who'll work with my anxiety as well as my inexperience. I'm convinced if I can just get enough practice in parking lots and dirt roads, I can develop some useful muscle memory and convince my overheating brain that I really *can* do this safely. I don't have any friends I'd feel comfortable doing it with, and every instructor I've hired so far is way, way too eager to just get me out on surface streets. "You're gonna have to learn to drive next to cars at some point! Might as well be now!" At a hundred bucks a lesson, you'd think they'd be the ones pushing for a slower approach, but that hasn't been the case. It's ridiculous. One instructor had only recently come out of a body cast from a crash he'd gotten in to with a student. She (the student) drove out into a busy intersection and panicked- just froze up. They were t-boned and a bunch of his ribs were shattered in the impact. He asked me if I'd be able to hit the gas if he told me to floor it. I told him I honestly didn't know. And right now, I still don't.