Saturday, July 30, 2005
Driving Lessons
My 15-year-old drove for the first time today on I-95 (the 95 for you big city folks) with my wife and me. He actually drove quite well but to say that his mother and I were on pins, needles, and the floorboard with the "imaginary passenger brake" would be an understatement. We made it safely to the local mall and he parked our Honda Accord beautifully.
It was when we were leaving that I almost had both a heart attack and a flashback. As my son was backing out of the parking space he turned the steering wheel. As he continued to back up I realized that he wasn’t paying attention to the front of the car which was now on a collision course with the parked car to our right. As any patient, caring, up-standing parent would do I yelled, "Brake!!" Steven avoided his first accident and I was able to avoid my first cardiac episode and use the moment to further school my son on the fine art of backing out of a parking space.
Steven later asked me why I was so "uptight" when he was backing up. I told him besides having visions of my insurance deductible I had a flashback to my beginning days of driving. I was backing out of a parking spot at my high school with a beautiful young lady in tow. For some reason I had come to the conclusion that to impress this vision of beauty I needed to exit my parking space as quickly as possible. Yes, you guess it; I forgot to take into account the front of my car and the vehicle parked on my right and I slammed right into it, neither impressing my girlfriend or my parents.
Is that the part that scares us about our kids driving or doing anything else on their own; the knowledge of our own mistakes in the past? I think it was mine today.
It was when we were leaving that I almost had both a heart attack and a flashback. As my son was backing out of the parking space he turned the steering wheel. As he continued to back up I realized that he wasn’t paying attention to the front of the car which was now on a collision course with the parked car to our right. As any patient, caring, up-standing parent would do I yelled, "Brake!!" Steven avoided his first accident and I was able to avoid my first cardiac episode and use the moment to further school my son on the fine art of backing out of a parking space.
Steven later asked me why I was so "uptight" when he was backing up. I told him besides having visions of my insurance deductible I had a flashback to my beginning days of driving. I was backing out of a parking spot at my high school with a beautiful young lady in tow. For some reason I had come to the conclusion that to impress this vision of beauty I needed to exit my parking space as quickly as possible. Yes, you guess it; I forgot to take into account the front of my car and the vehicle parked on my right and I slammed right into it, neither impressing my girlfriend or my parents.
Is that the part that scares us about our kids driving or doing anything else on their own; the knowledge of our own mistakes in the past? I think it was mine today.
