Driving Miss Daisy Crazy - April, 2009

I am going to say this with as much love, diplomacy and political correctness as I can muster:

Run for your life! Head for the hills! Stay off the roads!

Brandon Tillman has just gotten his driving permit.

Brandon, my favorite 16-year old nephew (OK, he’s my only official nephew, but he is a favorite person in my life), is now driving the streets of Hillsborough, “permitted” to drive with a licensed adult until he takes and passes his driving test at age 17 next March. Meanwhile, the rolling hills and broad thoroughfares feel just a tad less safe these days.

But why, you ask. As a veteran video gamer, he has superb eye-hand coordination. I drive, and I can’t get through even one song on Guitar Hero, while he goes to the advanced level. His powers of concentration are beyond reproach. When he is watching something on TV or playing a video game, you can talk to him, yell, stomp or whistle a happy tune in the same room with him, within five feet of his perch on the couch, and he won’t even notice you are there (though he can hear a package of cookies open in the next room without even turning down the volume on the TV). So why the worry?

Like most members of his generation, he grew up thinking that if you run the car off the road and crash into a brick wall, you just start the game over. No mention of insurance, no less bodily harm, in video games. Filled with the braggadocio of most 16-year olds, he fears nothing and is always certain he is right. Except that now he’ll be driving in a car owned by Mom or Dad, both of whom will be instructing him where to turn and what to do. Finally, Brandon and his best friends are all just getting their permits, which means a lot of 16-year olds are out for a drive these days. I know them all, and I sense trouble here.

I went to see him after his return from mandatory lesson one with the local driving school. “How did it go?” I inquired breezily, resisting the urge to ask if he had hit anything or anyone. “Fine,” he assured me, adding, “I wasn’t so great with K-turns.” K-turns, I thought. Who cares about K-turns? Make that turn as often as you want, but just don’t try it on the highway, I said to myself.

My fear worsened when I learned that his question to his mother (my favorite sister) after lesson two involved whether the wind can cause the car to drift to the right. Wind? On a street in town? It’s not like he’s on the autobahn. Why is he drifting to the right?

My sister has let him drive locally, carefully steering him through safe routes, avoiding problematic left-hand turns and narrow streets. She provides me with detailed accounts of their outings and I listen eagerly, agreeing on the selections she has made and praising her for her patience and planning. “Let’s just say,” she recounted after one such session, “that if a car had been in the other lane when we turned, we probably would have hit it. In fact, if a bike had been in the bike lane, he would have hit that.” Still, just taking him out driving is a big step for my sister, who kept him in a car seat for so long that I wondered if he’d still be in the backseat during driver’s ed class. The first time he got into the front seat of my car I thought he was pulling a fast one on me. “Are you sure Mom said you can ride in the front now?” I inquired. “I talk to her every day and she never announced this new policy to me,” I added dubiously. I think he was 13 at the time. My sister to this day insists that the regulation for keeping him in a car seat or at least in the back seat was based on height and weight, not age. In that case, she should still be in the backseat.

The other day my sister foolishly suggested they go to Friendly’s for dinner, forgetting momentarily that the trip requires an eight-mile drive down busy Route 206 – at rush hour, no less. (For those not from the area, let me just say that if you live in Hillsborough, your main goal in life is to avoid 206 as much as possible.) Despite her error in judgment, she allowed Brandon to drive. You’d have to know my sister to understand that letting him drive is tantamount to agreeing to jump out of an airplane – parachute or no parachute. She tried to conceal her anxiety, but a permanently clenched jaw and one simple but audible gasp gave it away. He didn’t wreck the car, but their relationship is now on a pretty rocky road, and I don’t mean 206.

His father’s approach is somewhat different from Mom’s. When she asked him how Brandon did, he summed it up succinctly, with no accounting of the route, how the turns went, the adherence to a plan or the speed limit. “Fine,” he declared.

I’m guessing Brandon prefers Dad’s approach, particularly since he pleaded with me, “T, don’t let Mom drive with me anymore.” You’ll be down to one parent then, I reminded him, asserting in a non-stated way that I wasn’t planning to substitute for either parent as a driving instructor any time soon. So far I have remained above the fray, my Mercedes conveniently resting in sick bay until I can get it to the dealership for repairs. My other car, my Sebring convertible – otherwise referred to by my sister as “the deathtrap” – probably will be deemed unacceptable for driver’s ed. So at least for now, I won’t be found clenching my fists and slamming on imaginary brakes while Brandon drives with me.

Nonetheless, it will all be over next year at this time, when he will be 17 and licensed to drive on his own. Venture out at your own risk.

Tina Gordon, April, 2009