‘I don’t want to get a ticket!’

I took my 15 yr old daughter (Rhae) out driving today so she could practice parallel parking for her drivers test. I learned that patients is the key. I should have learned this teaching my other older daughter, 19 now, as she has since been in several wrecks and has surrendered her license back to the state and cannot drive now. Not sure if that was my fault for not teaching as well as I should have or hers for not paying attention to on-coming vehicles as she is making a left turn.

As I digress…

Rhae is turning out to be a good driver. She has one fault that may prevent her from ever driving. That is, she cannot multi-task. I love Rhae to death, however she is a blonde. At least she dyes her hair blonde, and I think subconsciously she thinks she is, therefore she acts like one. What ever the case, she cannot look in her mirrors without her hands following her eyes. She also cannot look down the road and drive at the same time. Getting the ‘Big’ picture is a Big problem for her. She can only process one thing at a time. The car in front of her….then the lines on the road to make sure she is in between them….then her speed. By this time, the car in front of her as nearly stopped and we are still traveling at 40 mph. This creates a slight panic in my mind, and as calm as I can muster, as to not scare her and make her panic, I say STOOOOOP! She slams the brakes, I look behind us and luckily that guy had the smarts to look at the car in front of us and was just going to sit back and watch an accident unfold in front of him.

After cleaning my shorts, I ask if she is ok. She said I scared her, and I said, ‘good, now you know how I felt when I seen the decal sticker on their license plate getting larger’. ‘Pay attention!’ ‘I was!’ she says. ‘then why did you leave a 6 foot skid mark on the ground back there?’ ‘Because I was checking my speed’ she says. ‘I don’t want to get a ticket!’ I laugh. It’s all I could do at this point.

After practicing some parallel parking and driving backwards, we head home with no issues after that. She’s got turning down, and braking. Still a little more to work on. I am sure she will do good.