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Among Friends |
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| Watch out, here they come The 14 high school students in my husband's summer class have never missed a session or been tardy, love taking tests and always volunteer to go first. Odd behavior for a teenager? Not if you're almost 16 and learning to drive. Adults burning up $5 gas in rush-hour commutes may find it hard to remember a youthful romance with the road, when sliding behind a steering wheel was the coolest feeling in the world. Coming of age in tail-fin days of 50-cent gas and Beach Boys paeans to "Little Deuce Coupe," a Chevy engine's "409," and "Fun, Fun, Fun" 'til daddy took her T-bird away, I equate long-distance road trips with the pursuit of happiness. Today's kids mostly drive cars with automatic transmissions; my dad taught me to master the stick shift in a Chevy as big as a boat. There's an art to simultaneously releasing the clutch and depressing the gas pedal as you shift from first to second. I wasn't born with it, but I perfected it during endless hours in my high school parking lot. The gear-grinding practice that became a smooth-as-silk skill once persuaded Formula One driver Mario Andretti to let me lap one of his cars around the old Sebring, Fla., track. Bad eyesight kept me from switching careers, but memories of that adrenaline rush have me cheering for Danica Patrick every time she puts on her helmet. Some of my best times with my husband have been on the road. We both love to drive and only reluctantly concede the wheel to each other. Our various cars have reflected the diversity of our lives. Teaching his eager fledglings to IPDE -- investigate, predict, decide, execute -- as they learn to drive safely, my husband regaled them with stories of hanging an elbow out the window of his first car, a '53 black Chieftain Pontiac, to impress the girls as he cruised to Dairy Queen. He told them he learned his flawless parallel parking by fitting his '59 red-and-white Corvette convertible into tight spaces when he was a Marine in San Diego. He had his student drivers rotate white paper plates first left, then right, so they would learn proper hand positions on the steering wheel, a skill he said helped him make it to Alaska during the winter in his '65 Mustang. Employing his vivid imagination, the teacher who once christened his '75 Chevy Impala "Brown Cow" convinced 14 teens to pretend their bodies were cars, then get them to use their left hands to signal ("open, close, open close") their intention to turn left. One kid added "beep beep" sound effects. Underlying his 32 hours of classroom teaching, and the six hours every student has to spend behind the wheel under his tutelage, is my husband's research. Every nine seconds, someone in the United States is injured in a traffic accident. Every 13 minutes, someone dies. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, car crashes are the leading cause of death of Americans 15 to 20 years old. Even though teenagers make up just 7 percent of the driving population, they're involved in nearly 14 percent of traffic fatalities. Every year, more than 6,000 teens die in auto accidents. In our small town, there are several roadside markers decorated with artificial flowers and rock cairns to mark the spots where three of our beloved sons, brothers and friends were killed in single-vehicle accidents. As he uses toy cars on cardboard roadways to illustrate how his students are supposed to safely operate what, in a fit of rage or irresponsible hands, can become a deadly weapon, my husband thinks about these lost young men. Then he redoubles his efforts, reinforcing his strict state-required Driver's Education curriculum with stories of his own close calls, as well as the sad reminders of our local losses. Soon after they pass this course, Dean's students likely will earn full-fledged licenses. Along with representing their passport to personal freedom, licenses entitle them to share the road with the rest of us. Hopefully, the lives they save in a lifetime of exemplary driving won't just be their own, but ours as well. |
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