I had my first driving lesson today

[JamesU]

http://www.tvscoop.tv/car-crash.jpg

So...Yeah, watch out

 

[Poop-Loops]

I remember my first driving lesson. Teacher took us (me and 2 others) to one of the medium-traffic, medium-speed streets.There were no survivors.

 

[Cyrus]

I just thought of such a great un-PC joke. AHAHAHHAAh...

 

[scorpa]

That's great, just remember once you get your license be sure to forget most of what you learned and drive the right way haha.

 

[Evo]

When you take your driving exam, just follow my girlfriend's advice "wear a very short skirt".

I flunked parallel parking, but got my license. I wore a very short skirt.

If you are male, I'm sorry for you. You will actually need to know how to drive.

 

[Poop-Loops]

Not true. When I took my test, the tester told me to park against the curb. Not parallel, just against it, no cars closeby. I ram straight into the curb. He goes "WTF are you doing?", but we keep going. Near the end, he tells me to do it again, and I just stop in the middle of the street.

He basically says "Okay, I'll give you your license, but you have to practice that..."

 

[JamesU]

If you are male, I'm sorry for you. You will actually need to know how to drive.

Yes I am male, I thought you had figured that out by now

License is four months away, I'm sure I'll be fine

 

[Andre]

I flunked parallel parking, but got my license. I wore a very short skirt.

But then again other examiners might have liked to see you back.

 

[JasonRox]

I messed up my parallel parking and I passed.

 

[hypatia]

My motto, Peddle to the metal, and don't look back. Of course if you don't live in Michigan, it may not apply.

 

[lisab]

On my (first) driver's test, I drove the wrong way up a one-way street and promptly failed.

Now I'm teaching my daughter to drive...it's so stressful I need to take a paper bag to breathe into. After a half-hour I'm just done, my last nerve fried. They just don't make antiperspirants strong enough.

 

[Kurdt]

I didn't really have any disasters when I was learning to drive. I must have been very lucky.

 

[Math Jeans]

I have another couple years until then. Wish me luck!

 

[dingpud]

Rent a nice Porsche 911.

My reasoning:

• The instructor will spent the whole test "checking out the car"
• Small enough that parallel parking isn't that bad
• You can go 90 and it feels like 45
• Barter with the instructor (test drive for liscense)

just a though...

 

[Moonbear]

I messed up my parallel parking and I passed.

I know a lot of people who were let slide on parallel parking. They seemed content with "close enough" as long as no cones were knocked over in the process. It probably depends on whether your testing site is a place where you're going to need to do a lot of parallel parking or not. I would hope anyone taking a driving test near NYC would learn to parallel park, but if you're out in the 'burbs where everything is paved parking lots, you'll have forgotten what you learned before you need to do it again anyway.

 

[turbo]

When I took my road test, it was in my father's big ole boat - a 1966 Chevy Impala. After we left the court-house parking lot, the examiner pointed to the first open parallel parking spot and said "Park there", then when I pulled past the spot to back in, he said "This spot's too small. Keep going." I asked if it was OK if I tried that spot anyway and he let me. I swiveled that big car in, and he said "Drive back to the courthouse" and he signed my license. He didn't check my lane-changing, make me park on a hill or any of the other stuff they typically did then.

Back then, they didn't use traffic cones, boxes, etc for parallel parking. The examiners made you park in spots between parked cars.

 

[BobG]

I remember my first driving lesson. Teacher took us (me and 2 others) to one of the medium-traffic, medium-speed streets.


There were no survivors.

That's not unheard of. A few years ago, a man decided Rampart Range would be a good place to teach his daughter to drive. Dirt roads, low speeds, not much traffic. All she has to do is stay on the road.

And even if she fails to accomplish that directive, she'll usually eventually wind up back on the road since there's a lot of switch backs.

The downside of that strategy was the father didn't survive the twenty-some rolls it took to reach the road down below.

The girl survived, but I always kind of wondered how the rest of her driver training went.

 

[BobG]

Not true. When I took my test, the tester told me to park against the curb. Not parallel, just against it, no cars closeby. I ram straight into the curb. He goes "WTF are you doing?", but we keep going. Near the end, he tells me to do it again, and I just stop in the middle of the street.

He basically says "Okay, I'll give you your license, but you have to practice that..."

Parking is just one of those things that take a lot of practice:

http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/9940/hiddenvalley017am0.jpg

http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/7426/slaughterhouse027cp4.jpg

http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/5132/hiddenvalley023aka3.jpg

http://img79.imageshack.us/img79/9976/hiddenvalley009ary6.jpg


At least I don't park in the ditch:

http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/3177/hiddenvalley006arl9.jpg

 

[Mk]

Hey! I appreciate you not using pictures that are too big!

 

[BobG]

Hey! I appreciate you not using pictures that are too big!

Fortunately, the parking spaces weren't any bigger.

 

[K.J.Healey]

My motto, Peddle to the metal, and don't look back. Of course if you don't live in Michigan, it may not apply.

Quoted for truth.

 

[RonL]

When you take your driving exam, just follow my girlfriend's advice "wear a very short skirt".

I flunked parallel parking, but got my license. I wore a very short skirt.

If you are male, I'm sorry for you. You will actually need to know how to drive.

Nowdays you can buy a fancy LEXUS and it can park itself
Of course there's not much that will beat the short skirt
One of the worst things to ever happen to the truckin industry, was when cars started getting their windows tinted

 

[BobG]

Nowdays you can buy a fancy LEXUS and it can park itself
Of course there's not much that will beat the short skirt
One of the worst things to ever happen to the truckin industry, was when cars started getting their windows tinted

Nice signature, but CARBON is a girl's best friend.

 

[RonL]

I guess you have had that setting around on your computer for 8 years, just in case you ever had a diamond poster,

 

[jtbell]

It must be at least 20-25 years since I've had to parallel-park in a single space. There are some parallel parking spaces on the downtown streets of my small town, but whenever I've had to use them (which isn't often), there have always been a few consecutive empty spaces so I haven't had to use the full-blown technique.

 

[scorpa]

I think up here there is some talk of omitting parallel parking from the driving exam altogether as it is such a rarely used technique. I know the only time I would ever need to use it is if I lived/worked/shopped downtown but I do none of those so I haven't had to to it since I got my license 5 years go...once in awhile I make a point of doing it though just to stay in practice.

 

[JasonRox]

I know a lot of people who were let slide on parallel parking. They seemed content with "close enough" as long as no cones were knocked over in the process. It probably depends on whether your testing site is a place where you're going to need to do a lot of parallel parking or not. I would hope anyone taking a driving test near NYC would learn to parallel park, but if you're out in the 'burbs where everything is paved parking lots, you'll have forgotten what you learned before you need to do it again anyway.

We do our test drives on the road. I thought Americans did that too!

Oh, I can parallel park now. It's cake.

It was way off at the time. I was like still in the road. Hilarious.

My driving teacher said the key is to make the passenger feel comfortable while driving and you'll pass. That's what I made sure I did.

 

[SticksandStones]

My motto, Peddle to the metal, and don't look back. Of course if you don't live in Michigan, it may not apply.

Michigan: where going 10 over is considered too slow.

 

[Moonbear]

We do our test drives on the road. I thought Americans did that too!

Some do, others have closed courses for the tests, and some a mix of both where you do the driving part on real roads, but things like parking in the closed lot...reduces liability issues. I sure wouldn't want to have to park on the street where they do the driving tests!

The weirdest thing for me to get used to was parking on the one-way streets around the UofM medical campus...both sides of the street had parking, and you rarely had a choice of spaces (if something was open, you found a way to cram your car into it). On-campus parking was exhorbitantly expensive, so there was a lot of competition for street parking. I guess I'm all set to visit Britain now that I can parallel park on either the right or left side of the street.

Comparatively speaking, parallel parking in the town where I now live is a dream. A lot of the downtown parking is metered, so they've painted lines for the spaces, but I guess since so many people drive pick-up trucks here, they've been very generous on the size of the spaces.