My First & Very Nearly Last Driving Lesson

Lindsay turned fifteen this summer, and in only eight short months she can apply for her driver's licence.  That thought fills me with dread. I think sixteen is far too young to be behind the wheel of a car. I first started driving in England when I was seventeen, and it was another country and twenty five years later before I actually got my licence.

My godparents paid for my driving lessons when I turned seventeen. My instructor, an ex-policeman, who unbeknownst to my well meaning godparents, was a bully, as mean as the day was long. On my very first lesson, he picked me up from college and took me to the middle of Winchester, a busy city with a confusing array of one way streets and little old ladies with blue hair and drag along shopping carts who thought nothing of stepping out in front of a moving vehicle without warning. After five minutes of dodging wayward pedestrians, I was hyperventilating and in a near faint, but the fun was just beginning.

My instructor decided to get his jollies that day by having me try a hill start in a standard car.  Clutch, brake, accelerator, gear shift, was he crazy ? How the the hell was I supposed to figure that out ? So there I am at the lights, with a big assed Euro bus right behind me, trying to figure out how to get the car from "stop" to "go". The angry French bus driver went from shaking his fist to  shouting obscenities at me, as the traffic lights turned from green to red, again, and again and again. He obviously didn't see (or didn't care) the big red "L" hanging on the back of the car, and no, it wasn't for "Loser" but for "Learner".  My instructor, not to be outdone by the bus driver, starts shouting a few rude words of his own. I had never been called a "Stupid Bitch" before (I told you he was a bully) and I didn't much care for it.

Finally, and I don't know how, I managed to get the car up the hill. As soon as it was able, the bus came roaring past me, only to run out of lane, and proceeded to sideswipe front end of the car, as he tried to pull in front. You could say my first lesson had come to a crashing end. But wait, there is more to come. Stay tuned for tomorrow's installment.