One of the most stressful things
about being a parent is taking your child with a learner’s permit out to
practice driving. I don’t think my father ever forgot what happened when he
took me driving as a teenager. Suddenly, we found ourselves on the beltway
going in the opposite direction of all the other cars. My father remained calm,
and we quickly got off at the next exit, but it was very scary.
I remember one of my first driving
experiences after I got my license. I lived on Yeshiva Lane and took the car to
go to Shapiro’s, the kosher supermarket on the corner of Old Court and
Reisterstown Roads. I turned right on Old Court but then was too scared to make
a left turn into the Shapiro’s parking lot. I just continued driving straight,
on and on, because I was afraid to turn around. Soon I was lost. This was in
the days before cell phones and Waze. Finally, I was brave enough to pull over
at a pay phone and call my mother. She called our neighbor and cousin, Sheftel
Neuberger, z”l, who knew everything.
After I described which billboards were in front of me he directed me on how to
get home.
Too
Young
Having a newly licensed teenage
driver in the house is both exciting and nerve racking. One of my sons got his
license and went off cheerfully with his friend to try out his new
independence. A few minutes later, he called. He had gotten into an accident on
Fords Lane, five minutes after leaving my house! It didn’t inspire my
confidence in his new driving skills!
My friend told me that this
happened to her as well. She passed her driving test and got into a fender
bender right away. Her father was not upset, she said, and encouraged her to
get back into the car immediately so she should not lose her nerve to drive.
Too
Old
As we get older, we sometimes have
less confidence about our driving skills, and our children may be quite
critical. One of my children can’t stand driving with me because I reduce my
speed before making a turn or hesitate too long at a stop sign or slow down
when there is no stop sign. I can sense his relief when I let him take over the
wheel instead of me.
Here is a story a young man told me about a
trip with his grandparents.
I was once driving Bubby and Zeidy home from a wedding in
Lakewood. Zeidy was very nervous about my driving and would get upset if I
went even 56 mph in a 55 zone. I gritted my teeth and continued at 55 until he
dozed off. At that point, I drove as I habitually did, at the prevalent traffic
speed, 9 mph above the posted limit. (I’m not a reckless driver at all.)
The roads were empty and I was able to stay at 74 mph basically from the
time he dozed off until we were almost home. Bubby and I shmoozed most of the way. Zeidy
woke up when we were almost in Pikesville and immediately said to me, “That
seems very fast to have gotten here so quickly.” I was on the verge of panic,
but then Bubby stepped in and said, “It is only because you were asleep for a
very long time!” and that put an end to it.
Words of Wisdom and Miracles
One grandmother told me, “When the
driver is driving too fast and it is making me nervous, I quote what I learned
in drivers ed – ‘better to be late than be “the late…”’ It is such a wise
statement that I remember it 50 years after I learned it.”
Sometimes people are saved from
terrible harm by a seemingly miraculous event. My son-in-law Yair recalled:
I was
driving to Lakewood for a bar mitzvah. Opa was already in Lakewood, and he
called asking me to bring a sefer he was working on and had left
at home in Baltimore. It was a very snowy day, and when we were getting close
to Lakewood our car spun out of control. It made a full spin across the two-way
highway we were on and gently bumped into a tree off the road. When we
recovered from our fright, we noticed that the car collided with the tree at
the exact corner of our bumper outside the spot in the trunk where Opa’s sefer was safely ensconced....and, may I dare say,
safely protecting his progeny! Without further ado and without a scra
tch or any
noticeable damage to the vehicle we made our way to what turned out to be a
lovely bar mitzvah.
And another story by a nephew, Zevi:
We were driving
through a snowstorm in Canada. Visibility was close to zero, and we were moving
along at a sprightly 10 to 15 mph. But the trucks were not having any of it.
They were whizzing by at around 60 to 70 mph, and we comforted ourselves with
the realization that it was only for us Lilliputians that it was so
difficult to see. The truck drivers in their alpine level seats had a much
better view, so we were not in any danger at all.
We continued in blissful naiveté until we passed the
first overturned truck in a ditch, then a second and then a third, at which
point we realized that the truck drivers could not see any better than we. “Hinei lo yanum velo yishan – Hashem
neither sleeps nor slumbers.” We very
responsibly made it home, b’ezras Hashem alive and in one piece.
In our
times, almost everybody owns a car, and many people own more than one. If you
don’t own a car you certainly get rides in cars from others. We all have our
driving stories. Learning to drive is a rite of passage for every teenager –
and learning to drive better and more safely is the obligation of everyone,
adults included. I wish all my readers safe travels and only funny or
miraculous stories.
