Student Driver
Despite all the difficulties with the hand controls the other day, my driving lesson went really well. This was my second time around with this instructor, Jeannine, and we had a good time.
It's still a bit odd to drive without using my feet. Coordinating braking and accelerating with a single bar is tricky but as with anything new: practice make perfect.
At one point in the lesson, driving around the town of Vallejo and the former army base at Mare Island, we had to stop at a pedestrian crosswalk where some complicated street crossing was taking place. I reminded Jeannine of the joke we made the last time we went driving –– whenever something unusual and challenging happened on the road in front of me I accused her of hiring those responsible. During the last lesson a road construction truck suddenly stopped and started unloading in the middle of a residential street, someone ran a stop sign, children were playing along the side of the road. It just went on and on.
No sooner did I remind her of this but a car, driven by a young man and pushed by a young woman came lurching into the roadway ahead of us. We sat there as they repeatedly tried to push start this car. I told Jeannine I thought her employees were overdoing it a bit and she started laughing so hard she nearly triggered an asthma attack.
Anyway, it was nice to have a laid back instructor with a sense of humor in the car with me.
(All this took place on Friday. Nothing happened over the weekend, and the brakes are still not functional. Hopefully the flurry of phone calls to remedy this situation will begin today, and we can get the car towed back to the shop today of tomorrow. For the moment, Lisa is driving the our old smashed car again.)
It's still a bit odd to drive without using my feet. Coordinating braking and accelerating with a single bar is tricky but as with anything new: practice make perfect.
At one point in the lesson, driving around the town of Vallejo and the former army base at Mare Island, we had to stop at a pedestrian crosswalk where some complicated street crossing was taking place. I reminded Jeannine of the joke we made the last time we went driving –– whenever something unusual and challenging happened on the road in front of me I accused her of hiring those responsible. During the last lesson a road construction truck suddenly stopped and started unloading in the middle of a residential street, someone ran a stop sign, children were playing along the side of the road. It just went on and on.
No sooner did I remind her of this but a car, driven by a young man and pushed by a young woman came lurching into the roadway ahead of us. We sat there as they repeatedly tried to push start this car. I told Jeannine I thought her employees were overdoing it a bit and she started laughing so hard she nearly triggered an asthma attack.
Anyway, it was nice to have a laid back instructor with a sense of humor in the car with me.
(All this took place on Friday. Nothing happened over the weekend, and the brakes are still not functional. Hopefully the flurry of phone calls to remedy this situation will begin today, and we can get the car towed back to the shop today of tomorrow. For the moment, Lisa is driving the our old smashed car again.)
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