Op Ed: What’s the worst that can happen? Well, someone could die
February 15, 2008
by Susie Pender
She only got one wrong, out of the 20 questions on the New York State written driver’s test. And they don’t tell you which one, just hand over the learner’s permit with a smile and quick congratulations. Odd that. Shouldn’t they make sure she knows the right answer?
Armed with 19 correct pieces of information about driving in New York State and 16 years of watching her father and me drive hundreds of thousands of miles, she confidently took the keys when I offered them for her first practice run.
“I might as well be putting a gun in your hands,” I said to her. “You now have the capability to kill someone.” A startling thought, but then I wanted to startle. I have never been able to comprehend what a driver’s life is like after he or she has killed someone with a car because they were talking on the phone or drunk. How do they live with themselves? I want to save her from that life.
We find a quiet, mostly empty parking lot. Cell phone off. Radio off. Seat moved up, close enough to see over the steering wheel, not so close that the air bag will kill her. Seatbelt on. Adjust the mirrors. I have to shake off my automatic pilot to remember the whole checklist.
Key inserted in the ignition and then turn it until it catches. Catches? Well, just listen. You’ll understand. No response when all the lights blaze on the dashboard. Foot on the brake, the horizontal one. Release the emergency brake.
Oh, yeah, look up from all those things to see where you are going and, well, go.
She is very smooth. First go forward in big circles around the parking lot. Let’s try backing up. Momentary confusion about which way to turn the wheel to make the car go the way she wants it to, but soon she is backing into parking spaces, making loop-de-loops and three-point turns with ease.
I am giddy. I am 16 again. I look across at her from the passenger seat and see it on her face and simultaneously feel it bubble up inside me: the freedom of the open road, the endless possibilities, the great adventures that lie ahead.
So we hit the open road, well, the rarely traveled country lane next to the parking lot. Blinker on to keep the drivers behind you informed of your plans. There are no drivers behind me, she says to me with that know-it-all look teenager’s use to remind their parents just how clueless they are, we’re in a parking lot. Just do it, I say, it needs to become second nature. Left turn out on to the roadway, feel your way to the center of the lane. Blinker on, left turn back into the parking lot. Oops, you just plowed into the car waiting to pull out from the right lane. Where? She looks around. The imaginary car that was waiting there. We both laugh.
Second time out into the road and there is a real car coming. Wait until it passes, you don’t have time to pull out. We watch it go by. Blinker on, left turn out. Oh, a car coming at us. She is calm, finds the middle of her lane. The car passes by. Blinker on, left turn back into the parking lot. Missed the imaginary car this time. Yippee!
And as we circle round and round, parking lot, road, parking lot, road, her confidence and mine in her spiral up and up.
Several days later we try driving through downtown Chappaqua. First unpleasant surprise: wherever we go, we get honked at because she is driving the speed limit. Not below it, exactly the speed limit. Judging from the amount of honking it is clear that she is the only one driving the speed limit. I am ashamed to say that when I pick her up from school and offer her the keys, after the novelty has worn off, she declines and says, we need to get there fast, so you drive.
The second unpleasant surprise is a corollary to the first. We stop at various intersections and I explain how they work, who has the right of way and why. But none of them actually work the way I explain them. Cars are constantly darting in front of her, out of turn, endangering everyone — drivers and pedestrians alike. And for what, to get a car length ahead?
Slow down. I want to shout it at every driver on the road. But I know saying it won’t make it so. What will make it so I wonder? For me I’ve decided, it takes visualizing the worst that can happen. How could it ever be enough to say I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I was on my cell, racing to get, oh, somewhere that doesn’t seem very important now, not important at all when compared to the loss of a life.
Susie Pender is editor of NewCastleNOW.org.
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