I’m not going to lie to you. I’m not a car person. That’s not my area of expertise by any stretch of the imagination.
Just a couple months ago, when I needed an oil change, my mom suggested I go to a place that would also rotate the tires. I was like, “It’s a car. The tires are always rotating.” Like I said, I just don’t know anything at all about them.
I remember when I first got my learner’s permit and had to go down to the BMV. Aside from that time I toured the Holocaust museum, the BMV was probably the most depressing place I had ever been in.
I took a number. They had the weirdest system. Here’s an example of the numbers: K 10, O 7, C 328, G 7.175. It was confusing, and my number was XC 7 trillion, so I knew I was going to be waiting for awhile.
They finally call me up, and I get to the person who administers the vision test. This woman is jubilant to be working at the BMV, and for that matter, to be alive all together. And she tells me that I’ll see a light flash when I’m taking the test.
I’m struggling to see any of the letters, and I see a flash from the corner of my eye. I say, “I see it.”
She says, “I haven’t flashed it yet.”
“Well then, I must have cataracts.” Needless to say, I miserably failed. I had, for whatever reason, forgotten both my contacts and glasses, and some blind people can see much better than me, so that wasn’t a good combination.
The next day, I went back and finally passed the test (though I was pretty nervous the second time around). My parents always grilled me about needing to study for the written test. Please, if you need to study for that test, you are unfit to drive.
Anyway I have my temps, and one of the first levels of Dante’s Inferno is attending the Driver’s Ed classes. The guy I had was really dry and uptight. For instance, he said if you’re in a parking lot and the speed limit is 15, that that was too fast, and that you should actually go 10. If it’s 10, go five.
It was like, well what do you do if the speed limit is five? Put the car in neutral, and have someone push you.
That would look real cool. Having someone push your car with Jay-Z blasting in the stereo. It would certainly make parallel parking an ordeal.
Eventually, I made it through Driver’s Ed, but I never felt like I learned anything from it. For instance, if I’m driving on a bridge, and crash into a lake, I don’t have a clue as to what I’m supposed to do. I say go down with the ship.
The only thing I remember from the classes is that the minimum tire tread is 3/16 of an inch. Everybody remembers that for some reason.
There are a lot of useful things that they never even teach you in the classes, such as eating while driving, talking on a cell phone while driving, changing pants because you’re late for work while driving, etc.
Besides the class, we all had to drive for 50 hours with our parents. This was also a lot of fun.
I don’t know what your parents were like, but mine were (and are) totally crazy. If I was driving with dad and I missed a turn, it would go something like this: “Josh! Oh my gosh, did you see that car? Are you even paying attention to what you’re doing? How are you going to get a license if you – (15 minutes and about 12 miles later) – it’s not their job to look out for you. You need to pay attention. Do you remember your uncle Jack?”
“No.”
“Exactly.”
I once told my dad that I thought the blind spot was a state of mind.
My mom was the exact opposite of my dad when I’d drive with her. Miss a turn? Nothing. Cut someone off? Silence. Take a corner on two wheels? Crickets. So finally I decide to look over at her, and she has her eyes closed. All I hear is, “Our father, who art in heaven-“
Josh can be found every Saturday morning listening to car talk live on NPR. Tell him about your driving experiences at [email protected].