I was driving in my first lesson the other night, and Eduard, my gigantic Latvian former pro volleyball playing instructor, kept having to remind me to check the right mirror and my blind spot before making a right turn. Real drivers know to do this–they know it instinctively. “If you going to walk right, you won’t just go wit your eyes closed, would you?” Eduard said. “Same sing. If you drive to right, you look to right.”
It made perfect sense, except I had no instincts left, because I had to banish them to the Latvia of my brain so that I would be able to get behind the wheel in the first place. That is why this driving thing is so terrifying to me, at my relatively advanced age.
Kids who learn to drive may intellectually understand the risks of getting behind the wheel and thus being in control of 3000 pounds or whatever of heavy metal going far, far faster than human beings were meant to travel at ground level (or any level, for that matter.) But adults, I think, are capable of understanding it at a deeper, more visceral level. We have seen accidents, have perhaps been in one, and are in any case a hell of a lot closer to our own mortality than a teenager is. You can kill people, and they can kill you, and it’s that simple.
Someone like me, who is not practiced at compartmentalizing that information like those of you who have driven since you were 16, has to make the conscious decision to deny the danger each time I get behind the wheel. I must set aside my instincts, which have served me very well over the last 42 years, as evidenced by the fact that I am still alive. If you are sane and in touch with your emotions, those instincts are probably screaming, “What the FUCK kind of idiot are you? Take the subway!!” Not for nothing, car accidents are the number one killer of women of childbearing age, or were the last time I checked. And I think I am still of childbearing age, although no more children are forthcoming.
Talking myself into driving, given all the risks, is hard enough. But actually operating a moving vehicle stripped of those instincts that have kept me alive all this time is even scarier. With no gut to follow toward the obvious smart thing to do (check my blind spot before turning, for instance) I’m just a quivering Jell-O mold of Formerly with an enormous Latvian sitting in the passenger seat with his foot on the spare brake.
Just sayin’. I’d hazard a guess that no matter what your longtime fear–driving, flying, falling in love, eating seitan–I think that something like the above is what makes it harder to overcome when you’re older.
I had my second lesson this evening, and Eduard said he wasn’t as scared this time. Then he assured me he was joking, because he’s not scared of anything. I can’t imagine he’s scared of much. He’s 8 feet tall and knows the secret Latvian self-defense tricks that all Latvians probably know. If he had any sense, he would be scared of this.
Photo by Ice.bluess CC
October 22, 2009 at 12:37 am
You’ll be just fine Steph. My mom has an aunt who *learned* how to drive, stick-shift no-less, at 55 after her husband had a stroke. Now stick is hard… believe me!!! She’s 72 now, still going strong and a great driver at that!
Your driver-instincts are there, just buried deep down. Like everything else, what makes you a good driver is practice, practice, practice. You can do it girl!!
October 22, 2009 at 8:35 am
Isn’t there a bunch of science about how older folks like us are creatures of habit, and get set in our ways? How but some education with our entertainment?
I don’t know about the seitan part–I can’t get enough of the stuff, myself–but for me, it certainly applies to skiing, which I took up late in life. Though it’s also true that for most of my adult life, I’ve had a fear of going downhill fast (I can actually bike uphill way faster than downhill), but as a kid I used to fly down hills on my bike with no helmet and no fear. Now I just imagine hitting a pothole and flying off the bike the whole time.
It’s really too bad we don’t have more fear over our instincts. Clearly, sometimes they serve us well. I didn’t read “Blink,” but I accept that sometimes the gut thinks faster than the head, and hell, why not benefit from the lessons your genes learned but you haven’t experienced personally. OTOH, would it kill us to be able to override the paralysis when we’ve done a careful cost-benefit analysis and decided that yes, a few minutes of very careful driving provides benefits that outweigh the discernable but tolerable risks?
Also, did you read the book Empire Falls by Richard Russo? There’s a very funny description of the protagonist’s difficult relationship with his driving instructor in high school.
October 22, 2009 at 9:37 am
You’re doing fine. My Gramma learned to drive at this age, and did fine, driving into her 90s. In all her years of driving there was only one incident, with a peach truck, that my aunt was sworn to secrecy about, so Grampa wouldn’t find out. ‘Course, everyone in the family knew, cept for possibly Grampa. He was the quiet sort, so who knows?
October 22, 2009 at 11:07 am
Many sympathies…I learned to drive at 27, a lifelong New Yorker with no car aptitude. My first driving teacher was here in NYC–a cool Southern guy who kept saying: You gotta turn that wheel sugar! one time I got out of the car and started crying. Later I ended up in a hypnotherapist’s office trying to work through my driving anxiety–i think I’d been in one too many cab accident to ever feel fully at ease. Then I moved to the burbs and had to drive. I went back for lessons and had a cool Vietnam vet–he started over from scratch.i got pretty good at it. Then I moved back to NYC and things went south. I am thinking it would be good to find my Southern guy again or anyone who could start me off from the beginning. But you can do it. I know you can.
julie