I grew up in the era of moms and dads teaching us to drive. Yes we had Driver’s Ed, however, Driver’s Ed classes didn’t start until our senior year, by then most of us already knew how to drive. After all, at 16 we all wanted the coveted “learners permit!”

My father taught me to drive. First we went over the basics, starting, stopping, the gauges, how the car worked, what to do on wet, dry roads, turns, and anything else my father could think of to have me prepared for any situation. Things you weren’t going to get from Drivers Ed. My dad shared his many years of experience, and it made me a better driver than most of my female and many of my male counterparts.

Then, he took me into mid-Manhattan and told me to drive. For those of you who don’t know about NY traffic or mid Manhattan, it is absolute chaos. In amongst this chaos is the heralded NY taxi driver. “Believe me”, my father said, “if you can drive with the taxis, you can drive anywhere and will be ready for anything.” And he was right. Plus, in New York you had better know how to parallel park and to do it quickly, because if you took too long someone else was in there. My father actually had a stop watch and we practiced out on Long Island for several weekends and then back to the city we went.

My father also insisted that I learn to drive and maneuver going backwards. I didn’t ask why, I just did it. We lived by a high school and we went into the back parking lot and I have to drive backwards around the lot more times than I want to even think about. Believe me when I say I could drive backwards as well as I did going forward.

We also practiced around the cones, moving in and out of them, without knocking them over. If I knocked it over, I had to put it back up and then do it again until I could do it without knocking any over, going faster and faster each time. Very helpful when I had to make quick maneuvers on the Long Island Expressway. Also turned out to be very helpful in Funkanas and other events entered during the years.

So, who taught you how to drive? Drop us a line and let us know.

DeFiore Enterprises, Copyright 2005

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