Learner Permit

A momentous occasion is about to happen in the Mom of No household: the teenager is about to get a learner's permit. If you know where I live, you have been warned.

I was telling the Grandpa of No that this was about to happen, and he told me that he was going to give me some useful advice.  His advice was this: when I take her driving for the first time, I should go to a church parking lot.  I assumed it was because there would be wide open spaces and plenty of room to practice parking, but he said it was so that we'd be closer to God in case something bad happened.

OK, well, thanks for that.  I think.

Apparently, a great deal has changed since I got my learner's permit back in the olden days.  I vaguely remember taking a class at school, and getting a permit, and then spending a lot of time with my father (probably in a church parking lot) listening to him go "Stop! I said STOP! Don't go that fast! Quit putting your foot on the brake! What are you trying to do, kill me?".  Now there is driving school, which I am totally fine with, and a lot of paperwork.

Ever since I went to go get my own driver's license renewed a few years ago and found out after waiting in line for two hours (because I didn't read the directions; I  ass-u-me-d that already having a  current driver's license was sufficient) that I needed a pile of not readily accessible paperwork to prove who I was and where I was born, the idea of going to the DMV raises my blood pressure.  I went to the website to see what kind of documentation we'd need to bring, and most of it was stuff I'd never heard of, or the sort of thing a teenager wouldn't have, like military records or a boat registration title, or a federal inmate ID card.

This can't be that hard, I said to a co-worker.  It's not like I'm buying a house. Fifteen year olds get learner's permits every day. Clearly I'm not reading this information correctly.  You could always just call them and ask,  he said.  No, I said. I'm sure I can figure it out. I don't want to be on hold for an hour simply to admit I can't figure out this information.  Besides, that's what Facebook is for. I can just ask other parents.

Then I pulled up the state driver's handbook, because I wanted to review it.  I've been driving a long time, and I know I am guilty of bad driving habits that I don't want to pass on to the teenager. It's important to be a good role model.  The handbook was full of useful nuggets of information about taking your driving test and driving rules.

For example, if you are taking your driving test, and you crash, that's it.  End of test. Even if the crash wasn't your fault.  It would really suck if you were just driving along, doing really well, passing the test, feeling pretty good about the whole thing, and all of a sudden some completely oblivious driver runs a red light while texting and wham! No license for you. 

Also, if you are temporarily driving an implement of husbandry on a roadway, you don't need a license.  You should not park on a sidewalk or a bridge. On a road divided into three or more lanes providing for one way movement, a vehicle entering a lane of traffic from the right must yield the right of way to a vehicle entering the same lane of traffic from the left. So it's not supposed to be the free-for-all it looks like in real life.

I think I am ready to take this on.  All we need is a bunch of paperwork and a church parking lot.