The Driving Test
Jennie Fragale
On a lovely Saturday afternoon in
September just two weeks before my sixteenth birthday, my family and I went car
shopping. It was seventy degrees and
partly cloudy; a perfect day for test driving vehicles. It did not take long before we all agreed to
purchase a standard black Chevy Cruze.
Because it was so close to my birthday, I considered it my car, but did
not realize just how challenging it would be to not only learn to drive, but
also to learn to drive a standard vehicle.
I think my parents secretly bought a standard on purpose so that I
would not be able to drive it for a long time.
The day I had long awaited for had
finally arrived. September 22, 2011 was
my sixteenth birthday and I had school, but only until noon. I was leaving early so that I could take my
permit test. As I was preparing to leave
school, I had a big surprise waiting for me at the office. My boyfriend had sent me three dozen
roses! I walked out the back door of the
school with my roses in my hand only to find a gorgeous sunny day. In addition, my mom was actually on time to
pick me up. The day was starting out
spectacular. I just hoped it would
continue on the same path and that I would pass my driver’s permit test.
As my mom and I traveled to St.
Marys, I could not help but feel quite nervous.
I desperately wanted to breeze through my permit test with a passing
score. I had prepared for the test by
studying the PA Driver’s manual online.
When we walked into the DMV, I felt very intimidated. The men working at the desk seemed quite
rude. I brushed it off and sat down at
the computer to begin my test. At first
I felt quite confident with the questions and my responses. All of a sudden though a pop-up flashed on
the screen to alert me that I had missed one question and had five questions
left. I could only miss two more
questions in order to pass the test. Of
course, I began to get tense, but took a few deep breaths and kept plugging
away. Finally, I had completed the test
and passed with only the one mistake.
After a twenty minute lecture on rules and regulations from one of the
intimidating men, I had my driver’s permit in hand and we were free to leave.
I was not able to drive home because
we had the new standard car, but as soon as we arrived home; my dad took me
driving in our truck. My first driving
experience was both interesting and thrilling.
Of course, my dad was a little nervous, but he tried to stay calm. As to
be expected, I had a few obstacles to overcome.
One such obstacle was that I had to stay focused on the road, not on the
people all around. I wanted to wave to
everyone that I saw, but quickly was told that was a big “NO NO” when first
learning to drive. Maintaining the low
speed of twenty-five miles an hour through town was also challenging. When my dad starting clearing his throat, I
knew my speed must be too fast. I would
hit the brake and slow down accordingly.
I would have to say the most challenging skill for me to master was
taking corners. My dad would often hold
his breath and try not to yell when I took corners way to wide. At times, I think we were both scared for our
lives. As I progressed through my first
driving lesson, we both did our share of yelling and laughing. I truly enjoyed my first lesson, but quickly
realized I oneeded many more.
After several lessons with my dad,
my mom decided to take me in the stick shift.
This was very challenging for many reasons. Not only was I learning the simple skills of
driving, but I was also trying to learn how to maneuver the gears and a
clutch. It got very complex. I continually stalled out because I was
unable to let the clutch out with ease while gently pressing on the gas
petal. It did not take long for us to
realize I needed to take one thing at a time.
My mom and I concluded that I should stay with automatic vehicles at
least until after I got my license and had a year or so of driving experience.
Now
that my mom had taken me to practice, she was concerned that my dad was too
quiet during my driving lessons so she started to take me more often. I liked how relaxed my dad was, but he did
not know how to teach very well. He was
always on his phone either texting or talking to our relative, Mike
Vandermortel. My mom was very good at
teaching, but she would get extremely excited at times and make me
nervous.
My mom liked to take me driving in
town where she thought we were the safest.
I did not like driving through town though. There were too many stops and turns with
children crossing everywhere. It was
very chaotic and it did not take long for the tension to build between us in
the car. I kept plugging away and made
sure I was attentive to all that was going on around me.
Once I mastered the in-town driving,
we hit the highway. Of course, I made my
mom nervous. I do not think she was
prepared for me to travel at a faster speed.
Seriously, I believe she wanted me to go twenty-five miles per hour in a
fifty-five mile an hour zone! She
told me to always watch the cars coming toward us and keep an eye out for deer,
bear or people. We discussed what to do
if I were to go off the side of the road a bit; I was to slowly make my way
back on the highway and never jerk the car.
One time she had to yell at me to stay back further from the car ahead
of us. Overall, I did a good job for my
first time on the highway and my mom even paid me a compliment.
My mom got tired out and asked her
dad, my grandpa, to start taking me for driving lessons. So, now I was on my third teacher! I was starting to get a major complex. My grandpa had taught my mom to drive and the
stories I had heard made me quite nervous.
My mom told me that she had never gone driving with him without coming
home in tears. She told me he always
yelled at her. In the end, it all worked
out though because my mom is a pretty safe driver and she gives all of the
credit to her dad. I had to give him a chance.
The day came for me to drive with my
grandpa. My grandpa insisted that I
drive his car so now I had to get use to a different car and a different
teacher. We took off from my house and
started a lesson. My grandpa was
extremely serious about driving. He
takes every precaution possible. Even
when there was no one on the road or around it he would yell “children!” just
to see if I was paying attention. He
would yell at me if I went just a tiny bit over the speed limit. He would say “watch your speed” at least
twenty times a lesson. At this point, I
had driven through town and on the highway quite a bit, so my grandpa decided
that it was time to get experience on twisty roads. I felt nervous about this, but I tried to
keep calm. I drove across the bridge and
headed up to the top of the mountain. He
was very informative when teaching me how to take sharp turns. After a few lessons on the terrifying roads,
I slowly started to master the sharp turns.
My grandpa was a strict, but excellent teacher. After some time, my driving lessons became a
lot calmer. Driving became second nature
to me.
Now that I could handle any type of
road, my cousin, Malarie and I decided to take an adventure to our county’s “Top
of The World.” I drove on Suicide Hill
to get to our destination. Suicide Hill
was extremely scary. Guide rails are not
provided on the steep dirt road. After
about thirty minutes on the dirt road, we arrived at “The Top of the World.” The view was breathtaking. You could see mountain tops for miles. We took pictures then headed back to town.
Finally, it was time to learn how to parallel
park. Malarie had me practice in my high
school lot. Parallel parking was one of
the hardest tasks for me to master. I
failed at many attempts. We even tried
using cones. I felt defeated. After several tries, Malarie tried to explain
the process differently. I took a deep
breath and kept tying. At last, I
succeeded! We were both so excited!
Soon enough it was time to take my
drivers test. My parallel parking was
better at this point, but still was not perfect. My dad went with me to the DMV. We pulled in then went inside and
waited. The workers were mean and
miserable again and of course I felt very nervous and intimidated. Eventually, it was time to take my driver’s
test. I was so incredibly nervous that
it caused me to shake which was not helpful when I took the wheel. The very first part of my test was the part I
worried about the most. I had to parallel
park. I was under pressure from this
rude man. I pulled out and went to
Parallel Park. I knew right away that I
did not line the car up correctly. I
maneuvered as much as I possibly could, but I knew I was not in the lines. The man got out of the car to take a
look. He came back with the embarrassing
news that I had failed. I felt silly for
allowing myself to get so nervous, especially because I had practiced so much. I knew how bad both of my brothers were going
to make fun of me. They both passed
their tests the first time. I decided to
keep my failure a secret. I was beyond
embarrassed, but now I have to admit that it was a little funny.
I was not going to try again for a
while. I practiced for an extra three
months. My summer goal was to get my
license. Once July came I felt that I
was fully prepared to take my test. My
mom took me this time and we went to Bradford because we heard the workers
there were very kind. When we arrived we
were greeted with smiles and polite words, how refreshing. I relaxed, took my test and finally became a
licensed driver.
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