Maddy's driving lesson

Madison turned 15 in November.  Old enough to get her driver's permit despite the fact that she has an overprotective mother and a walk-behind-her-with-pillows-no-you-are-too-young father.  For the record, now that I have a teenager at this age, I am an advocate for raising the age of drivers.  Do 16 year old kids really have the mental capability to sit behind the wheel and operate a ten ton piece of machinery?  She can't even navigate her way to the grocery store that is right down the street or get herself up in the morning with two alarms.  But I also didn't want to stifle her getting a learner's permit that would allow her to at least practice behind the wheel of a car.

I never practiced driving as a teen.  The first time I got behind the wheel of a car, besides as a tiny child sitting in my dad's lap, was when I got out into the field during my high school driver's education class.  I can honestly say that I had a few missteps which I blamed on the fact that no one allowed me to get behind the wheel of a car sooner like my brother did.

The story goes that my brother and my father were at the family farm for the weekend.  My father was on the roof repairing something and my brother wanted to go down the road to my Aunt Lorene's.  He kept bugging my dad about driving him down there and my dad kept telling him in a minute.  Eventually my dad got annoyed and said something like, "Just take the keys and drive yourself."  My brother was 11 years old.  A few minutes later my dad came down off the roof  to discover the car and my brother gone.  While he was standing there my brother drove up the road, past the farm, reversed, and cleanly backed the car into the drive, stopping at my father's feet.  He didn't get into trouble because he is the chosen one my father had told him to do it.

This was just the beginning for my brother.  He was legendary in our neighborhood at the age of 12 for driving without parental permission.  He was often spotted on Sunday mornings in my father's car tooling around the vicinity of our neighborhood.  He was also caught a few times driving out on major roads by the neighbors on their way home from church.  This would result in a call to my parents and my brother would be punished.

Once when it had snowed so hard during the night that school had been called off I was happily staring out the window at the falling snow when I saw my car drive slowly off down the street.  I freaked out and started running down the hall screaming that my car had been stolen.  My father went outside and stood looking at the empty spot in the garage where my car was suppose to be when here it came back down the road and into the garage, my brother behind the wheel.  When asked what the hell he thought he was doing, my brother replied that he was checking out how bad the conditions of the roads were.  He was 13.

I didn't want Madison to have to sneak around like that nor did I want her to have my experience of never practicing until it was absolutely time to do so.  So I was willing to let her get her learner's permit so that she could at least puttering around in a parking lot somewhere.  The problem in obtaining a learner's permit in our area is that she has to take a four hour online drug course and test and so far she has not shown any interest in putting forth the effort.  So she hasn't done any practicing.

Fast forward to our summer vacation, a leg of that trip being at the family farm, the site of my brother's first driving experience.  If there is one place in the US that a kid can safely practice driving a vehicle it is the farm.  No traffic.  No people.  Nothing but corn fields on either side of you.

Madison's first driving lesson came the day we left because we kept forgetting.  She drove from Aunt Lorene's house to the farm.  I sat in the back seat with Darcy and  Kelly rode shot gun and directed her in what to do.  It was her first time behind the wheel ever.  Not having taken any classes or studied any instructions she was clueless.  We had her get familiar with the pedals.  She followed Kelly's instructions and we started up the gravel road.  There were a couple times she slammed the brake and we all pitched forward, but for the most part she did well.  As she neared the farm, Kelly told her to turn into the gate, but never having turned before she did it very gently and had she been accelerating at any great volume we would have gone through the fence down the street.  Because she was driving so gentle and paying attention she tapped the brakes and tried again.  Eventually she had to back up to try again, and because she was still too slow, Kelly leaned over and showed her how to turn the wheel quickly and efficiently.

We arrived safely.  Her first lesson lasted all of five minutes, I was sweating profusely, and decided that was all I could take.  It was a rental car after all, and it was the day we needed to leave, and she didn't have the proper papers.  Enough for me to call the driving lesson to a halt until she has taken her online course and secured her permit.

I'm not ready for my daughter to drive any more than my sis-in-law is ready to send her son to college.  These are our precious first born babies.  I have spent too many years knocking objects out of the way so that she won't be hurt should she fall to have to start over again this time running in front of a moving car.  Luckily, I have Kelly.