Christmas is over- Blondie goes back to work--

Just got informed I have to take Victoria into work again in the morning. Wife took her this morning, didn't have the guts to let her drive. So I have to take my life in her hands again tomorrow morning. I'll post the adventures (misadventures?) later---

Have you thought about her going through a driving school? I know of some where beginning drivers are taught safety and car control and drive with a good instructor onboard. Sometimes an out of the family voice and coaching sinks in better.

Just feeding the fire is all...
Not such good drivers

Like to know her side.!

Just got back a few minutes ago. She's better and she's not. Make it through one curve fine, and scare the crap out of you the next. 25 in a 40, 40 in a 30. Just not consistent. I guess it will come with practice. She parked smewhat between the lines, but crooked. Over corrected the opposite way, reparked, crooked the oppposite way. Third time was the charm.

As far as the driving school, she's been through the classroom, and did 3 hours with an instructor two weeks ago. She says he talked about his family the entire time. And he wants her to have about twenty hours of driving time b4 she goes out for another ride with him. She ought to know how to drive in that amount of windsshield time so his job will be easy. I guess talking about his family takes his mind off his precarious job. But if she wants to have 20 hours b4 another ride along in January, she'd better forget her boyfriend for a while and try to get some real time in. At this rate, it will take her about two months to get that much time in. Her boyfriend brings her home in the evening and she's with him all weekend. And he isn't qualified to teach her- he's a newer driver. So I guess I'm the designated trainer. But she still needs to be able to think this stuff out on he own. I can correct her, but I want her to try to think for herself. I'm not going to hold her hand for the rest of her life, so she has to learn how to figure things out without someone else constantly telling her how to do something.

Three important things to teach her.
1. Never back up any further than you have to.
2. Never assume the other guy is going to stop for the red light or stop sign
3. Left turns are the most hazardous part of driving.

That's what I've thought since I started reading this saga; not all driving problems can be blamed on the blonde behind the wheel.

I've got news for you, some men aren't much better.
I was a Tracked Vehicle Familiarization instructor
in the Army at Fort Sill, OK in 1968. We quickly learned when we had a new class to ask where they
were from. Many from larger cities had O driving
or motorized equipment experience. Some of these
students might start out ok, but would freeze up
in the first stressful situation they encountered.
We started them out with a lecture in the bleachers, then 10 instructors took them to their M109, a 155mm howitzer that looks like a tank, but only weighs 31 ton and was powered with a 405hp 8V71T Detroit that would allow a 45mph top speed (IIRC). That first day of actual
driving with these inexperienced students in a 40
acre sized flat field was an experience that you
won't soon forget. Some would freeze up and not steer, not look at their instructor, slow down, or stop once they were moving. If we could get them past the basics the first day, it wasn't so bad, but you learned to never let go of the instructors fuel shut off that was added to each of our tracked vehicles used for this class. There were no women in these classes, but there
are a lot of similarities to the driving described
in this post.

Mel I feel for you. I was a tactics instructor at Ft Know for AOB. WE would take 4 LT's and fill out a crew then take em to the field for 10 days with a chair bolted to the top of the turret that we instructors rode in. At the time these shiny new officers had about 2 hours seat time driving a tank. Really multi tasking sometimes while monitoring the student net, instructor net, insuring safety and evaluating the student in the command position. Got to be pretty hairy riding in those seats! We could tell an Lt where a tank would not go but if they wanted to try it they could !

Rick

Our daughter spent time in Germany as an exchange student.

Unless it's changed since then, in order to qualify for a driver's license in Germany, you need to successfully complete a course given by a professional driving school. (At a cost the equivalent of some $1500-$1800).

There should be something similar here in the States, but I don't think there's a politician alive who would touch it.

Speaking of our daughter, the summer when she was 15 and anticipating turning 16 and getting her driver's license in October, she was already a fairly good driver. It occurred to me, however, that I had a 30 acre field of wheat stubble just sittin there. I bought an old Camaro, and our daughter and I spent many an hour, securely belted in, exploring the limits of that old Camaro.

In the process we learned a lot about oversteer, understeer, bump steer, center of gravity, roll center of gravity, roll axis, how to intentionally spin out a car to avoid something worse, and the fact that if you're faced with an undesirable situation there's a lot you can do to avoid it instead of just locking up the brakes and sliding into it with your eyes shut.

I've never seen any tangible results, but I always thought that when she got her license, she was a lot better prepared for public roads than her peers.

Hi again, guys. It's me. Here in Maryland, they have changed the new drivers laws, probably for the better. From what I can gather, a kid has to have driving school, which Blondie is currently enrolled in, and 40 hours behind the wheel with a driver who is an adult. A portion of the driving school is with an instructor, but the rest of the time is made up by the trainee in someone elses' vehicle. That's where we are now. That 40 hours. She has had the session with her instructor, and has one more to go. I can only guess he wants to go out with a student later to fill in any weak spots before they take the final test at DMV.

Torie's problem is that she didn't feel confident enough at 16 to drive. Now that she is out of high school, she's finding out that it is time to think about leaving the nest and striking out on her own. So, she finally got into it with her mother one night, packed a garbage bag of makeup and a few clothes, and moved in with her girlfriend. When her gfriend's parents found out she just really wanted someone to feed her and keep her in the manner in which she felt she was entitled to, she was told to hit the bricks there, so she came here with her tail between her legs. Then she found out that Gmom and Gpop weren't any more convinced than everyone else that she was something special, she is finding out that she has to fend for herself some. Kinda like what my boss told a couple of kids we had at work, you had to work or get fired. So, after laying around here for the past four months, and running around with her boyfriend in the evenings, she has found out that money allows her to do things, and it is in short supply. So she finally got another job, but she still has to get there. When we threatened her with a bicycle, and it's getting cold, she finally realized if she had a license and a car, it might be easier to get to work and get money! It has only taken her eighteen months to come up with that one!

One of the questions she asked this morning was why do they have a speed limit of 30 in a village, but 40 outside of the village where there are curves in the road? So you can see what I'm dealing with. On her ride with the instructor, she drove about sixty miles or so. We asked her where she had been, and she told us. We asked her how she got there. She wasn't sure, but they went past a Burger King. Light's on, but not much. I can think of several ways to get to the Aberdeen area, and of five Burger Kings between here and there. She still can't figure out where she went. She was born and raised around here, her first job was on the Proving Ground, and she still doesn't know how she got there. She still has to realise she has to wake up and pay attention to something besides where the burger joints are. And even if you know you can get food at one, you still need some of the green stuff after you get in the door. No one else can do that- only her.

Yeah, Gdad has patience. And I think my credentials are pretty good. I've been driving for close to fifty years, and everything from a lawnmower to an M-1. 'B' John Deere to the 8250. Little trucks to big trucks. And driver training from defensive driving to zone control driving to emergency vehicle operator training. She's in good hands- but it would be more fun teaching a monkey to fly--

Drat having a poor family spend $1800 for a driving school. Anyone with decent coordination, eyesight including depth perception, and motivation can learn to drive. I realize someone in a big city accustomed to public transportation with no car in the family has disadvantages, but the public schools offer driving courses. They even did 55 years ago. I couldn't take advantage of the driving part, just classroom work, since I already had a driver's license since age 14.

KEH

Sounds like she has a dependency problem. Never was encouraged to grow into an independent girl or woman. Her struggles with driving is her way of rejecting any notion that she should, or could, be independent. She is letting you know this is how it's going to be. Your only salvation is to get her married off to a guy willing to assume the support you and your wife have provided.

I have an 17 year old nephew like that. He was always escorted to and from the school bus stop until high school. Has never had any regular home maintenance responsibilities. Has never had a paying job. On the rare occasion he is asked to do something outside, he takes a book with him and reads it or stands in one spot and watches his father do the task.

Over the past three years, he gets college info mailings every day. At first they came from every region in the country. Now they are all local. Plenty of schools in eastern Mass. It would appear that his parents will be driving him to college as he has no license and it doesn't look like he ever will get one, or permitted to apply.

If a bird doesn't learn to fly in the species specific time window, they never learn and become defenseless.

You pretty much have it nailed. Trouble is, the guy she's going with right now isn't a whole lot different. He depends on his parents to deo most everything, even though he has a job. It's almost like every kid in her life is cut out of the same bolt of material.

I think we must have had the same "instructor". Only thing I would add is "keep your head on a swivel in a parking lot". Things come from all angles there.

Kirk

Start charging her gas money to and from work, that should kick her into gear. When I was in highschool people would always ask me to give them rides to here and there. Yea sure Ill give you a ride, gas money and 5 bucks. This was around when gas was 5/gal. Unbelievably, they paid it 0_0.

Rick, I think you were braver than I. Were there any trees in this training area? There were around
ours. We were in an instructor safety seat, with an aircraft style seat belt, bolted right along side the driver's hatch, not up on top.