Learning to drive is a teenage rite of passage. The wheel of a car, the start of an engine, the tactile turning of a radio knob have been symbols of freedom for generations of adolescents. But the road to receiving a driver’s license can be bumpy, full of twists and turns, and one that many people travel down a few times before they’re certified to drive.
Everyone has a learning-to-drive story, some people have a few. They’re ultimately as much a part of the process as starting the engine. Nearly 84% of American are licensed, with 60% of them receiving their licenses before the age of 18.
Teens between 16 and 17 — the average ages for learning to drive — are more likely to get into car accidents than any other age group. I didn’t get into my first accident until I turned 21, three years after I got my license, when the car I learned to drive in — a 1998 Nissan Altima — slid on a rain-slicked street and rear-ended another car. But my early days as a driver were marked by the bump of my tires on curb stops in fast-food parking lots, night drives to my favorite songs, and almost skinning the paint off my car trying to parallel park.
Below, readers share some of their early experiences behind the wheel.
Cheryl Lacasse of Lewiston: a patient mom and a trusty Delta 88
“Fond memories of our parents. First they paid for our driver’s education at Roy’s (Driving School) years ago. After the classroom hours, learning to check oil, etc., getting the driver’s permit, our mom — after working all day, feeding us supper — took us out every night Monday through Friday for 1 full hour practicing parallel parking, etc. Very dedicated, patient mom she was! I never felt nervous with her as I got to drive her Oldsmobile Delta 88! Loved that car with the bucket seats and (stick) shift in between the seats on the console! Mom is still dedicated, patient and kind! Wish our parents could still have that Delta!”
Caleb Roebuck of Lewiston: hints of success
“The drivers ed team in my area was made up of two people. One did just driving lessons and the other taught in the classroom in addition to the driving lessons. One thing they both made sure everyone knew was: ‘The most important part of learning to drive’ was going through the drive-through, and (they) would bring students there and order McDonald’s during the lessons. My class was the classroom instructor’s last class before moving on to a new job. In order to pass and earn our permits, we needed a certain score on the written test. And if someone didn’t pass, they would have to come back later for a makeup exam, where the instructor would have to be as well. A few students (in my group) didn’t pass on the first try. Rather than have them come back for the makeup test, they brought them one at a time into the hallway to ask the questions the student got wrong. When reading the answers for the multiple-choice questions, they would put extra emphasis on the correct answer until the student had enough questions right to pass. Everyone in my class ‘passed’ and the instructor didn’t need to come back later.”
Driver’s Exams by Ernie Anderson
Anonymous in Mechanic Falls: Untested in Tennessee
“Through a loophole, I never took a driving test. I got my learner’s permit in Florida in high school. Then, after I moved to college in Tennessee, I needed to get a Tennessee ID. I went in prepared to have to take a driving test. My Florida ID at the time only indicated ‘Class E restricted’ in very small print to denote that it was a learner’s permit. The clerk did not know this (I did not say anything apart from ‘I need to get a Tennessee-issued ID’) and she looked at it and queued me up for a regular Tennessee license, no test. To this day, in my 40s, I have never taken a physical driving test, only just the written.”
Jeanmarie Reed of Blue Hill: still embarrassed
“The year was 1973. My family had moved to Dexter in the fall of ‘72. My folks quickly made connections in town, but moving as a sophomore was a challenge for me. Most of the girls in my class had known each other since kindergarten and their moms and grandmoms had gone to school together too — you get the picture. Driver’s ed was a self-conscious, adolescent nightmare. My instructor was the AD (athletic director) at the middle school who was in several social clubs with my folks and played cards with my dad at the Dexter Club, a men’s club.
“I drove with a pair of equally uncomfortable students. Conversations were strained and revolved around driving method: ‘Stop, look right, left and right again, ease out . . . slowly . . . not so fast.’ Often said by the instructor while he was pressing on the brakes on his side of the car. It always felt like my heart rate and the gas pedal were in sync. One afternoon, the driver’s ed teacher had me drive out to a farm to see his friends. They chatted and, (when) leaving, he told me to watch out for the stump. Glancing in the rearview there was a stump at the edge of the field 20 yards away. What a joker, I thought, as I backed into the stump behind the car. Ugh.
“The second embarrassing moment came one afternoon when we were driving in his personal vehicle without a passenger side brake. We drove around the lake and he asked me to pull into Lakeshore Lunch so he could get an ice cream cone. Pulling straight into a parking spot in front of the order window was a breeze. Backing out, not so much.
“(He) got his cone and asked me to back out and head out to Route 7. Putting it in reverse, I slowly inched back (hundreds of people in the order line were watching) and I heard him say ‘cut the wheel,’ so that’s what I did, while stepping on the gas. He hollered and stomped on the nonexistent brake on his side — I can still hear his foot pounding the car floor. I stopped inches from the car beside us, just in time to see him drop his ice cream cone on the floor. Years later I’m still embarrassed. And while back-up cameras are a big help (these days), R is still my least favorite gear.”
Judy Meyer’s sisters Janet and Karen wash the van they learned to drive in this photo from the 1970s.
Judy Meyer of Auburn: Getting up to speed with Dad
“I am the second of six sisters, and there was a rule in our house that we couldn’t learn to drive until the next oldest sister did. Thing was, my older sister wasn’t terribly interested in driving and I was annoyingly eager to get my license. So, Debbie and I struck a pact with our father that we would learn together, but Debbie would take her test first. Whatever it took to get behind the wheel, I was in.
“I had hoped our lessons would be conducted in my mother’s 1965 Plymouth Barracuda, but alas, we were to learn on the family’s early-1970-something full size GMC van. Three on the floor. Before we were ever allowed to get in the driver’s seat and turn the key, our father assigned each of us to write a two-page paper on the relationship between the transmission and the clutch so we would fully understand what was happening while shifting, and not ruin the clutch.
“This was in 1978, before the Internet. I could have poked through my father’s stash of Road & Driver for days, but it seemed easier to walk to the library and check out a book on manual transmissions. Not easy to find in our public library. So, I read through the book, studied the photos and illustrations and wrote two pages on gear boxes, flywheels, pressure plates, the evils of riding the clutch, and all. I was pretty proud of myself and shared it with Debbie — who hadn’t even started writing. So, like any competitive sister, I went to my father with my paper and made an argument that since my assignment was complete, I should be able to start driving lessons. Debbie could pursue at her own pace. Much to my surprise, he agreed.
“So, he packed a bunch of orange pylons in the van and drove us down to the Port Washington Landfill (which now happens to be a Superfund site) and set up the pylons in rows to begin our lessons. I quickly learned that writing about engaging a clutch was far, far easier than actually engaging the clutch.
“That first lesson got off to a rocky start, but pretty soon I was allowed to drive on neighborhood streets and practice parallel parking at the train station. The train station was important because there were always lots of people rushing around and my father thought learning under pressure was best.
Judy Meyer’s father washes the family van in this family photo. He required each of his children to write a two-page explanation of how a clutch works before he would allow them to drive. Submitted photo
“One Saturday, me, my parents and two of my sisters piled into the van to go to a nursery for some trees and things. My father drove there, somewhere deep into Nassau County, and we loaded the van full of leafy flowering trees and shrubs. My father asked me if I wanted to drive home, and I jumped at the chance, so my mother and sisters crawled in the back and sat on the bench behind the plants. I could barely see them in the rearview.
“As we headed out, he told me we were to take the Long Island Expressway home, rather than go back the same way we went out, and I was all about it. I’d been driving a mere month, had (almost) mastered shifting gears and was feeling pretty relaxed behind the wheel. As I turned up the on-ramp, my father calmly told me that if we weren’t going 65 mph by the time we got to the top ‘we’re all dead meat.’
“I endured three seconds of panic and then poured on the gas. My mother started reciting the Hail Mary and my sisters started crying. My father sat staring straight ahead as I twisted around to see through the trees inside the car. It was both frightening and exhilarating, and we hit the top of the ramp at speed and flowed safely into traffic. My father then declared I was ready to take my driving test. My father still has the Barracuda, although no daughter was ever allowed to drive it.
“I still drive a stick.
“And, I think of my father almost every time I ramp up to highway speed.”
Bitsy Ionta of Dixfield: Learning wasn’t automatic
“In the late ’40s, my father decided that my brother, Andy, and I were ready to begin practicing driving prior to applying for a state driving test to get a license. At the time, our father always worked the 3-11 shift as a watchman at the lower gate at the Oxford Paper Company in Rumford, Maine. There was a large parking area near the lower gate that would turn out to be the ideal area for practicing driving . . . sort of.
“This was just after the Second World War. To supplement the family income, our father rented a small building on The Island of Rumford, rented a truck, drove to Boston and purchased a large amount of war surplus goods to be sold to the folks of the River Valley. He worked at the store until two o’clock and left for the mill when our mother arrived to take over the duties of Mike’s Surplus. He also purchased a former WWII ambulance to advertise his business. This was the vehicle that Andy and I were going to do our practicing in.
“After suppers, Andy and I walked to the mill and were told, and shown, how to start, shift and maneuver the truck. The truck had a manual transmission that was difficult to shift, a driver’s seat that wasn’t close to the clutch, brakes or gas pedal, a clutch that took a large amount of physical effort to push in, and brakes that required both feet, pushing hard, to work. The worst part was that we had to sit on the edge of the seat to reach the pedals. As soon as we pushed hard to make anything work, we slid backwards in the seat.
“There we were. Our father had gone back into the watchman’s building wrongly thinking that we were ‘all set.’ Andy went first. For those of you who took your test with a vehicle that had a manual transmission, you can imagine what a hilarious herky-jerky affair transpired that evening at the mill. Because we were both in the same situation, neither of us ever laughed at the other when laughter might have been appropriate.
“Because there were other vehicles in the area (some of the nights we practiced), at times Andy and I had to admit defeat, leave the truck where it was, shut it off and walk back to the watchman’s building and tell our father that the truck was in such a position that we didn’t dare move it.
“There’s an old saying that ‘All’s well that ends well.’ We continued practicing at the mill until our father determined that we were ready for the big test. We both passed on our first try. Because I’m a truthful person, I’ve got to tell you that we took our driving tests in a car with an automatic transmission.”
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