Drivers Ed

We drove old clunker cars with big flashing 'driver in training,' sign on the roof. You had to push the brake pedal all the way to the floor to get that baby to stop. We had to watch cheesy videos - videos that were made 100 years ago. And that annoying brake on the teacher's side. 'Do you mind, I'm trying to drive here?'

My driver's ed instructor is retiring this year. Probably for the best. He would fall asleep regularly while we were driving. How can anyone fall asleep with three giggly teen girls in a car. We didn't complain because it often worked in our favor (once I ran a stop sign, he never knew). 'Shh don't wake him up." But how does one learn to drive when the teacher is sleeping? Unfortunately he was fully awake during my final driving test because I failed parallel parking. Because of this tiny fact, I was required to take a test with a DMV representative. To this day I avoid parallel parking if at all possible.

Course us country kids learn to drive as soon as our feet can touch the pedals. (There's not a lot of parallel parking out there.) If we can't quite see over the steering wheel, you'd throw a couple thick phone books on the seat. I once pulled over to the side of the road to let my grandpa pass in his car, he rolled down the window, 'need some help?' "No, grandpa, but did you notice there's a 10 year old in the driver's seat?' Contrary to what driver's ed instructors will tell you I was taught to drive down the middle of gravel roads, which I continue to do today.

If you're scared at the thought of having your teen behind the wheel, the kids I grew up with first learned to drive a combine before graduating to the car.

Another thing I've learned about country driving (avert your eyes driver's ed students). Stop signs become more like yield signs on the gravel road I grew up on. You can look to the left, look to the right and there is no car in sight for miles 99 percent of the time. While in driver's ed I was told to observe my parents and how they drove. Once in a while they'd do a rolling stop and would tell me to close my eyes or forget what I was about to see. When I tried it in driver's ed, my instructor screamed, "That sign says 'stop,' not 'almost stop.' Needless to say kids, stop at ALL stop signs, especially when there the corn is tall. You'll be glad you did. It'll take a few extra seconds but it could save your life.

There are a few things I wish driver's ed would have taught me. For instance - how to change a flat tire, how to drive on icy roads, how to get through the cloverleaf interchange in Denver, how to drive in a blizzard or when it's so foggy you can't see the nose on your own face. Or with some of the new Toyotas, how to safely stop if your car takes off on a joyride. Needless to say I had plenty of time to learn and I still learn something new once in a while.