DRIVING LESSONS

DRIVING LESSONS

A lady at work was telling me that her daughter is taking driving lessons right now. She has to go to 24 hours of classroom work followed by 8 hours of driving with the instructor. Wow!

When I got my license in 1961, I learned by going out a few times with my dad. I remember that he took me to the parking lot of Cincinnati Gardens for practice and later to Ault Park. When we agreed I was ready, I just showed up at the testing station and took a 5 minute written test and a 5 minute ride with a highway patrolman. Basically, you just drove around a couple of blocks by the station. The real trick was the parking test. You had to be able to parallel park between cones with flag poles. You couldn't hit a cone and you had to get the car within a foot of the curb. Most people who failed, failed on the parking part of the test. The tester would give you a score for each part of the exam just like in school with 70 as passing. Kids always talked about the scores they got on the tests. If you failed, and many did, you had to wait 30 days to take the test again. You could take the test the day you turned 16 and a lot of kids did just that. I had to wait about a month before my parents would let me take it.

I took the test at the Blue Ash test station in our family's 1956 Chevrolet sedan. It was a big, lugging two-toned green car. I was about 5'6" at the time and I think I had trouble seeing over the steering wheel. Luckily, it was an automatic. Many cars in those days were standard shift.

Part of the written and driving tests were hand signals. (Only the latest cars had turn signals, break lights and backup lights) You had to stick your arm straight out the window to signal a left turn, out and straight up to signal a right turn, and downward to show you were slowing down. Failure to give the hand signals would cause you to fail the driving part of the test. I can't really remember, but I'd guess there wouldn't be many signals given in very cold weather.

It seems kids are better prepared to drive when they get their license these days but I wonder if that relates to less accidents. All the learning aside, nothing is more important than maturity. I think anyone can be a good driver if they respect it enough to concentrate at all times.