The Driving Test

As I mentioned in a previous post, when I first moved to the Washington D.C. area I did not have a car and chose public transportation over buying one.  

See 

http://shadowflutter.blogspot.com/2015/07/mass-transit-and-loneliness-of-commuter.html

By the time I had decided to buy a car, my driver’s license had expired long ago.  In Sallyland — name changed to protect the guilty — when this happens, you have to take the written and driving tests over again.  This is no small matter, because I come from a long line of bad drivers.  My grandfather on my father’s side didn’t drive at all, and my dad didn’t learn until his late twenties, early thirties when he was in the army.  The story goes that upon refusing a superior’s order, he was banished to the car pool.  It was there he allegedly learned to drive, but not before wrecking the clutches of several jeeps and smashing another one or two into fences and walls.  (He was yanked out of there when the base commander learned a fully trained paratrooper in the 101st Airborn division had been reassigned to the car pool. Dad learned to jump out of an airplane before learning to drive a car.)

He never did get the hang of it.  He thought the dashed white lines separating lanes were there to center the car on.  I remember him many a time merging into traffic on the highway then immediately seeking out the dashed line, the car, once centered on it, never varying an inch left or right as if magnetically attached to it.  And there we would drive, cars honking at us, people giving us the finger as they passed by (usually on the shoulder since dad was taking up both lanes), my dad cussing them all the way to our destination.  

At Jones Beach, Long Island, there is a huge traffic circle that circles the Jones Beach tower, and all day long traffic zips into it from three separate freeways, merges, then zips back out scattering among the three freeways again.  And the dashed lines merge and scatter to.  I don’t know if you have ever been there, but if you have, you know that, with people driving 50 miles an hour or faster merging from three different directions and then scattering again, it is an accident pile-up waiting to happen.  And in the midst of this, here comes dad driving into the circle at 50+, car happily centered on dashed lines which are now merging into one another.  I’d grab with steel grip whatever was available to hold onto and push back against the seat like an astronaut preparing for liftoff.  And as if that wasn't bad enough, sometimes dad would lose his bearings, and we would have to circle the tower several times until he regained them.

My mom’s side of the family was better, but not much.  If my dad threw caution to the wind, my grandmother embraced it like a lost and then found again child.  Whether driving down a country road or a major highway, she’d drive 35 miles an hour hugging the far side of the shoulder. Ensconced where only work crews should be, she'd putt-putt along driving 35 in a minimum speed zone of 40 hugging the far side of the shoulder smoking a cigarette, the car going kaplunk . . . kaplunk . . . kaplunk . . . bouncing over the equally spaced gratings of the water drainage system, which also hugged the far side of the shoulder.

So it was with much trepidation I called the Sallyland Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA).  The lady on the phone was pleasant enough informing me that I needed a recent bill with my name and address on it to confirm residency.  Easy enough.  I had been living here for a couple of years, and the power, phone, and sanitation bills, were all in my name.  Then she added, “and a copy of your birth certificate.”  A copy of my birth certificate?  I don’t have a copy of my birth certificate.  I haven’t had a copy of my birth certificate since . . . since . . . since . . . I was born.  So I asked why a birth certificate was preferred over another form if ID that had my picture on it.  A birth certificate doesn’t have a picture — although mine did have my baby footprint — so how do you know it’s really me?  Well, it’s all about 9/11, you know.  Since 9/11, birth certificates are all the rage, and everyone needs one to acquire almost any kind of official government document.

After too many attempts, too much money, and too many months, I secured a certified copy of my birth certificate from the great state of New Jersey, and with power bill and certificate in hand marched down to the MVA in the back of a taxi cab.  Walking up to the counter, a big smile planted ear to ear, I placed bill and certificate in front of the lady.  She took the bill, confirmed my residency, then handed bill and certificate back telling me to get in the next line, the one for taking the written test.  

Me, no longer smiling: “Don’t you want to look at my birth certificate.”

Lady: “No, that isn’t necessary.”

Me:  “But the person on the phone said I needed it.  It took me months to get it.  Don’t you want to look at it?”

Lady:  “Not necessary.  Next!”

I passed the written test, barely, and went to another line to schedule my driving test.  There a woman with a younger boy about 16 years of age and a still younger girl stood before me in line, and the boy would keep yanking the girl’s hair.  After one too many yanks, the girl turns to the woman and . . .

Girl: “Mommy, Johnny won’t stop pulling my hair.”

Woman:  “Johnny, stop pulling your sister’s hair.”

Johnny:  “But she keeps  . . . blah . . . blah . . . blah.”

Woman:  “Johnny, if you don’t stop pulling your sister’s hair this instant, I’ll take you home and send you to your room instead of getting your license!”

Johnny: “Oh, all right.”

And I’m standing there wondering to myself, this kid is getting his license?  He’s going to be behind the wheel of a car?  Oh, my goodness! 

I asked the guy at the scheduling counter if he would like to see my birth certificate, but he didn't want to see it either.  Before leaving the MVA, I wandered aimlessly asking anyone whose path I crossed if she or he would like to look at my birth certificate.  Not them either.

After scheduling my test, I arranged with a friend to use his car to take the test.  At the appointed time, my friend picks me up in his pick-up truck.  I’ve never driven a pick-up.  We pull up to where the driving examiners are, my friend gets out, I move behind the wheel, and the driving examiner gets in the passenger side.  She is about 5’ 5”, 200 pounds, shoulders like a linebacker's wearing pads, a 29” waist, and the look of a disciplinarian.  

Her: “Ready?”  

Me: “Yes,” still worrying about driving a pick-up truck.  But I need not have worried, because as soon as I pull out . . .

Her:  “Stop!.  You are in violation of section AAA.XX. YYYY.ZZZZZ of the Sallyland penal code.”

Me: :Wha?  What did I do?”

Her: “Look,” and points to the windshield.

Me:  “What, I don’t see anything.”

Her”  Look where my finger is pointing.

I look.  Nothing.  So I move my eyes closer and closer until my head butts up against the windshield, and there, only visible from a distance to microscopes and authoritarian driving examiner types, is a nick about 10 microns across in the lower right corner.

Me:  “Yeah, so?  It’s on your side, and it isn’t obstructing anyone’s vision.  You can’t even see it.”

Her: “I can’t allow you to take a driver’s test in a vehicle that is in violation of Sallyland statutes.  You will have to replace the windshield.”

So I reschedule and arrange with another friend to use her car.  She has an SUV, jumbo size.  I have never driven an SUV before, let alone one that looks like it’s on steroids.  Doesn’t anyone drive small cars anymore?  Now I’m thinking about parallel parking, how bad I am at it, and how much worse I will be at it driving this thing.  So I suggest a practice session.  About 25 attempts later, I manage a successful landing. And with that on my mind, we drive to the MVA.  

This time my examiner is a guy who does’t seem to care much about anything, certainly not a nick no one can see unless they have a magnifying glass.  So, safety belts fastened, I pull out and signal a left-hand turn onto the street . . . 

Him:  “No. keep going straight.”

But the only thing straight ahead is this paved, vacant lot about the size of a Target parking lot. 

Me: “But there isn’t access to the street over there.”

Him.  “We don’t test in traffic anymore.  We have our own area where we conduct tests.  That’s it over there,” and he points to the vacant lot.

The lot is huge with lanes connecting bloated cul-de-sacs, and we are the only ones here.  Not another car to be found.  So we proceed with the test.  I turn left, I turn right, all the time using my turn signals.  

Him: “See where the road passes the cul-de-sac up ahead?”

Me: “yeah.”

Him: “Pretend there is a stop sign there.”

So I pull up to the corner, make a full stop, look both ways, then proceed.”

Him:  “That was okay, but you should’ve stopped further from the sign than you did.”

Me:  “I did.  I was just pretending the stop sign was further along the road than you did.”

Next he tells me to turn into a cul-de-sac and pull over to the right and stop.

Him:  “This is the three-point turn test.  You have to turn around turning the steering wheel three times, not 2 not 4 times but 3 times, and go back out.”

A truck driver driving a tractor-trailer could do a U-turn to get out of here.  But I follow his instructions making sure not to do a U-turn, the natural thing to do given all the space in which to maneuver in the middle of nowhere, which would result in an 'F' grade in SallyLaLaLand. Success, and in only three turns of the steering wheel.

Him: Okay, now for the last test, the parallel parking test.  See those two plastic poles over there on the side of the road?”

I look, and there they are a little more than a car’s length separating the two.  Here it comes, I think, The dreaded Parallel Parking Test.  I try it three times and screw it up totally, the last attempt ending with the car 3 feet away from the curb and at a 30 degree angle.

Me:  “I’m done.  It is what it is.  I’ve never been able to parallel park.  Whenever I park, I keep circling the block until a space big enough to pull into becomes available, like an airplane circling an airport waiting for permission to land.  If no space that size becomes available, I drive back home.  That's how I drive. I don't parallel park, EVER! It's not natural.  Do what you gotta do.  I can always keep taking the train."  

We drive back to the MVA entrance where he says to me, “Go inside and get in such and such line to get your results.”  Not good, I’m thinking.  He could tell me here.  I probably failed.

But I passed and got my Sallyland driver’s license.  It’s reassuring to know that you can get your driver’s license for a fee, and neither you, nor the driving examiner, nor the state of Sallyland, nor anyone else, has a clue if you can drive in traffic.  Drive, but never assume the other driver will do the right thing.  You never know, he could be yanking his sister’s hair at the wrong moment.