The Drive to Drive

I don’t feel like driving yet, even though I turned 16 in January. Over here it’s a big deal if you can’t drive because you have to take the bus to school or your parents drop you off, so if you get a study in senior year then you can’t leave the school. And all the part time jobs are literally highways away so it’s not like you could walk to work. But everytime I think about getting my permit, it just feels like one big panic attack. For starters, I don’t think I’d be a good driver. I can’t even stay focused in Mario Kart Wii without flinching or pausing to let go and look around for a few seconds (It’s just keeping my hands on the wheel that’s annoying. I could pay attention in school and stuff). And a lot of the ‘etiquette’ sounds complicated. Like the 3 car distance rule thing. Apparently you have to be 3 cars behind someone on the roads. How do you know? What if I suck at visualizing the 3 car distance? Or the intersection stuff. There were a lot of factors for intersections. Like waiting for the other car, realizing if you go first because of distance, how to turn the light thing on that says which way you’re going… . And I actually did pay attention in Driver’s Ed. It’s just been a while.

And then getting my permit seems like a long, impossible process. Do I go to the DMV first? A driving school? Is the driving school just a fancy way of driving in an empty parking lot with your parent? How long does it take to get an appointment? What if my driving instructor is rude? In my Spanish class a kid was talking about how his driver was really rude to him, and then a bunch of other kids were like ‘Oh, you got stuck with him too?’. What if I get stuck with someone who’s too nice to tell me I’m driving incorrectly? Google hasn’t helped answer my questions. I know I just have to ask someone, but anytime I tell someone I don’t have my permit yet, they look at me like I’m an alien.

Then the entire thing against people with driving anxiety bothers me. Over here in NJ, you need your permit for 6 months before you get your license. But it has to be 6 months before your 17th birthday (I suck at explaining things) so my birthday is January 31st, so I needed to get my permit by July 31st if I wanted my license on my 17th birthday. However, I have midterms on my 17th birthday, so I’d have to go to the DMV and wait for my test, do the driving test thing and then come home and study for 2 midterms and then celebrate my birthday. I already celebrate my birthday on the weekend closest to it now because of midterms and the driving test would be the last thing I need to make my birthday more stressful. Not to mention, the roads are covered in snow, ice, and slush, so the driving test thing would be harder. But when I told my cousin this, she acted like I was being so high maintenance! Honestly, just because she doesn’t care about school or grades doesn’t mean I don’t. And what if I failed my license test thing? Then I’d be depressed about that on my birthday, lose time to study, be upset about that for the rest of my midterms and the week, then I’d have to reschedule. I know this is all melodramatic and stupid but people act like if you can drive you have to drive. And my other cousin (lower 30’s) acted surprised when I told her I didn’t get my permit yet at a family party. She was all ‘driving isn’t scary’ and stuff, but later at that same party, her mother told me that she didn’t get her permit until she was in her 20’s because she was scared of driving. Now she lives in the city so she just uses public transit. And when she has to drive, her husband just drives for her. So yeah. Her advice wasn’t helpful at all.

And apparently Hollywood and other show producers have no idea how getting a car works. I hate how every character could drive perfectly at the age of 16 and gets their own car during junior year, too. My cousin (notice a pattern?) got an average (I don’t know. I’m not a car person.) looking car that wasn’t pimped out and stuff for her graduation. The only reason her sister (cousin 1 in this post) got a car at the beginning of senior year was because her Mom or Dad or someone was buying a new one and they didn’t want to get rid of it or something. Heck, when I walk near the student parking lot at my school, most of the cars look average and from the mid-2000’s, with maybe one or two pimped out brand new car each row. But on Degrassi, any character who could drive not only drives, but has their own car! Eli Goldsworthy has a hearse, while Jake Martin has a pick up truck. Peter Stone had a brand new convertible. And all three were only juniors! I think I remember Peter’s Dad being a car salesmen, but still. I remember my driver’s ed teacher telling us to get average first cars because we’d be first time drivers and accidents would be really likely then, so it wasn’t worth it to get a pimped out car. I could think of way more fictional high school students who had a car then didn’t.

And people act like just because I don’t have my permit now, I never want to drive and I’m gonna live in my parents’ basement for the rest of my life. Obviously I want to drive. Just not yet. And saying ‘you could go to the mall 24/7!’ isn’t a great promise because I need to be with a licensed driver over 21 until I’ve been driving for a year or something, so basically a permit is useless. I mean, you could only have 1 licensed passenger with you, so why not let them drive?

Okay, I think I’m done.

Edit: Oh yeah, remember how a few weeks ago I said that 90’s Nickelodeon took over Twitter?

Here’s that screenshot. Only Sister Sister wasn’t from 90’s Nickelodeon but it was still from the 90’s so it counts. And Mano A Mano in el Bano was promoted so yeah. They still haven’t changed the lineup, though.