So much fun! Tonight we were stopped at a red light and a police SUV pulled up next to us and rolled his window down. Matt, who was driving, rolled down his window in return. The police officer, with a great big smile and the proverbial head nod, said, “Do you want to race?”
I said, “At exactly the speed limit? ” What a sight that would be!
I don’t know about everywhere, but here in my state we require all of our students to spend six hours sitting in the back seat of the driver’s ed car observing each other. I’ve had a lot of inquiries regarding why this is. Kids say, “I’ve spent the last sixteen years sitting in the back seat of cars watching other people drive. Why do I have to sit in the backseat of yours?” My quick answer has always been, “I don’t know. The state makes and us, and so we shall.”
It’s part of what we call a graduated licensing program, which has as many steps as possible between you being a non-driver, to a fully privileged licensed driver. The idea is that the more exposure you get to instruction, the more you can learn. Parents have said to me, “I’m not sure I feel safe having my kid in the car with a new driver.” Well, I’m right here to keep us safe, and if I can do it for your kid when it’s their turn behind the wheel, hopefully I can do it for all of the kids. It’s truly in my best interest to keep the drivers ed car in one piece as well as all of my students and myself for that matter. I’m going to to do my best.
It’s kind of a sneaky good idea though. In this age of screens in the back of every mom-van, phones in the hand of every kiddo starting younger and younger, having students actually look up and pay attention is really necessary. So many students are scared silly that they will not know how to get anywhere because they have never watched their parents drive. They are really shocked when I tell them that in our state until you turn 18, you cannot use GPS either unless it’s programmed into your actual car. No use of hand held devices AT ALL.
Having never watched people drive, they have less of a sense of right-of-way, and the common courtesies of driving. All that seems to penetrate that screen coma are the curses, honks, and feeling of road rage that permeates the car when parents are stressed and in a hurry. That’s what they are taking away, not the thank-you waves, careful inching out to see at a difficult intersection, or thoughtful blinker usage. Those things are quiet and so they don’t notice them.
Observation hours let them see what they did wrong on that same route, or what they can feel good about. It helps them see that we all make the same mistakes, and that we are all in this together. If something crazy happens, there is more than one student to learn from that one incident. We also have a lot of fun. Having some kids in the car means we can make new friends, have meaningful conversations, inside jokes, and positive encouragement.
Observation activities give direction to the hours, so there is meaningful learning going on. The activities should be simple so that kids who get car-sick or have night driving observation hours don’t have to read or write very much. It’s a fight sometimes to keep the observing kids engaged and not on their phones, doing other homework, or falling asleep. I try to have them be part of the experience as much as possible. Some of my students just muddle through them and cannot wait to get them over with. Some of my students would rather be in my car than some other places they might be stuck or have friends in the class and wind up doing several more than the allotted 6. Sometimes they just come along hoping we can squeeze in a drive-through during a driving hour, (which I firmly believe is a driving skill that is intimidating to new drivers and so I will do this if the driver wants to and it fits with time and our lesson plan.)
All in all, I’ve become more of a fan of the observation hours. I think parents should give thought to having kids be more and more engaged any time they are not the driver. Insist they put down the screens and observe. I know, then you have think about what you are modeling for them, but I hope you’re doing that anyways.
I hope you can take some time to really observe the world around you. Make fun of people driving badly, have a street sign BINGO game, play road trip games. Stop and smell the exhaust around us, and admire the pretty lights. Be safe!
As opposed to a road trip.
Yesterday I felt really ill. I get fun migraines that come with floaters in my vision and nausea. Sometimes an aspirin will help, sometimes it seems to just make them mad. The first two students, it was just an annoyance. Then I had a break and since it’s too far to come home between students, I found a quiet spot in the school parking lot and tried to rest. I sat up twenty minutes later feeling much worse. I just made it through the next student, fighting nausea and knowing that while we got through our lesson plan, I was not my usual cheery self. As that hour was ending I had to make a choice about the rest of the day. I had three more students scheduled for the afternoon. Nothing seemed to be helping here at all.
I pulled out my phone and the phone numbers listed and texted the kids letting them know how very sorry I was, but I didn’t think I could do it. I don’t think I can explain how much I hate to cancel on students. Driver’s ed is a constant fight to get kids enough hours behind the wheel. Everyone has very complicated schedules, including me, and I know I have to make plans way in advance to make my life work. I do not appreciate it when my students cancel on me with no notice, and I try to live by the golden rule and treat them the way I want them to treat me. If they cancel on me with no notice, there is a fee. I usually waive the fee if it is due to illness, but I don’t want to be taken advantage of either. When they cancel, it not only makes my day much less productive, but the hour still has to be driven another time, which actually feels like two hours have been wasted. It’s very annoying and disrespectful.
I also have to weigh my performance. These kids each only get ten hours with me, which seems like a lot, but they go really fast. If they only get one shot in their whole life to learn how to drive well, and I’m not at my best for one of those hours, they could miss something important. It’s not fair. In addition, things happen really fast in the car, and if I don’t react quickly or explain well, we could get hurt.
This is not a regular job where you can just call in sick. There is no substitute me. I am the whole company, and I cannot just hire someone even if I found someone I trusted. They have to be certified and trained. That takes a very long time, and is a huge responsibility. Having someone alone in a car with teenagers who do not have a license? I know most people will get how big a deal that is.
So I spent all morning thinking about all of these things. It was a hard decision, and most of the time I will drive no matter what. This time I cancelled and got home and crawled into bed with the covers over my head for the afternoon. I felt terrible, and I still went back and forth over making the right decision, which I’m sure did not help the headache abate. When I finally got up to try to eat something, I saw a text that one of the students had not gotten the message and had gone to the driving hour only to be stood up by me! Uh. If can only tell you how much worse I felt. I try so hard to be professional and lead by example. The number he was texting from was not the number he had listed as a contact number, so I don’t know how we got our signals crossed, but I replied and apologized a lot. I am so bummed. I don’t think I could have done this differently, but I have been on such a guilt trip for the last 24 hours. I wish it had been a fun road trip.
Yesterday I was driving with students in a rural area. It was a really windy day with lots of leaves blowing around. First, one car flashed high-beams at us, and having just talked about this in class the day before, we went through our mental checklist of possible motives.
Were our headlights on? Yup
High beams? Nope
Were we at an intersection where they were telling us to go? Nope
Did we know them? Nope
Is there a police officer ahead? Why tell the driver’s ed car who is clearly going the speed limit? (You should never do this, by the way, you may be telling a bad guy where the police are.)
We give up, maybe it was a mistake or there is something ahead we need to worry about. We kept going, and a second car flashed at us. Now we’re really curious. One more bend in the road revealed the mystery.
We saw a huge tree had come down across the road in the wind. We slowed way down trying to see if we could squeeze by on the right. As we did so, a car coming towards us just went around coming all the way over onto our side to do so. Now, this was wrong. If the hazard on the road is on your side, it is your problem, so he should have waited for us to go. After he passed, we very carefully went through the ends of the branches pushing us onto the shoulder, but we managed to get by.
Yesterday was my first day of class with new students. As drivers ed teachers, we get to do this far more often than regular school teachers, who only have first days once or twice per year if they have half-year classes. I get one about every two months. Would you believe that even after 18 years of doing this, I still get nervous? Really nervous. I want so badly to get off on the right foot with new kids. Set the right tone, say all things I want to say, get through all the information. It’s difficult to get across the idea that this is a very serious class, with a very serious topic, but that it should also be fun. Driving is fun! Driving is scary enough, my student’s shouldn’t also be afraid of me.
I invite parents to come to some of my first day as well, which adds to the nerves. I want them to get to know who they are entrusting their kiddos in the car with. I want them to see how much I care about their kids, and how seriously I take their safety. I want them to know we are in this together and we need to communicate and practice as much as possible in order to get the most out of our limited time together.
You never know what personalities you will get in a new class. By the end of a class, my students and I know each other so well after ten hours of driving with lots of one-on-one time, and having survived something together. It’s hard to let them go. I walk back into the same room, expecting the same smiling faces, ready to hear about their day, their latest driving adventures, or whatever they want to share, and instead I have a sea of anxious faces not knowing where to sit, what to expect, or who I am.
Luckily for me, yesterday as I walked in, several of my old students came running in, shouting my name, waiting to tell me about their DMV stories and how they got their license, or still have to wait. Their big smiles, inside jokes and victories totally made my day. My hope is that the new kids see that and know that old kids still stop by happily, means to me, I am doing something right. So to my most recent former students, “clouds and cammo,” will forever remind me of you. To me new students, I can’t wait to see what our adventures will bring. We got through the first day, and now we can get down to work. Driving begins today, and I hope you are excited too.
Dropping a kiddo off at school this morning, I was so very pleased to see several cars in front of me doing the same. Parents were getting out of the passenger sides of the cars and switching sides, having let their kiddos do the driving in to school. I love that! You know school is going to be one of the places that they will drive most, so have them practice it. There are a million reasons not to, including, but not limited to:
“We’re running late!”
“You’re tired this morning'”
“I’m just not in the mood”
“It’s cold and I don’t want to switch when we get there”
“We’ll hold people up”
Do it anyway. If you’re going to expect them to drive to school once they get that license, teach them to leave plenty of time in the morning to get there. Teach them to be sure to get a good night’s sleep so they are ready, (I know, easier said than done.) Good job parents, making it happen. Even if it’s ten minutes, every ten minutes helps. It really does add up, and then you’ll know they can do it when you send them out that first time on their own.
I have always had nothing but respect for our men and women in blue. Our local police consistently go above and beyond the call of duty to keep us safe and be of help to our community. Lately, I have had several reasons to make my beliefs even stronger.
First, a huge burst of gratitude for my favorite local police officer, Chief Fisher, who I often refer to as either a rock star or Superman. He is a respected police chief, SWAT leader, parent of three amazing boys, (all of whom I got to teach how to drive,) tireless volunteer, coach of two high school sports teams, and somehow always make time out his incredibly busy schedule to come a talk to my driver’s ed classes. He is knowledgeable, approachable, funny, firm and yet friendly. He is the perfect positive police presence for my students, and I could not be more impressed every time he speaks. (That was a lot of P’s.)
Next, on one of our typical trips down Main St., in a quest for the most interesting thing we can fine, we spotted one of our illustrious bicycle police officers walking his bike as he helped a little old lady slowly cross in the crosswalk. He carried her oxygen tank for her balanced on one of his handlebars as he smiled and patiently chatted as they strolled. Totally made my day! I wish I had a video of that for you.
Lastly, yesterday, (I still can’t get over it!) we got pulled over in the driver’s ed car. My student was driving perfectly nicely down a busy road. We stopped at a traffic light, and as I always tell my students to do when stopping, we checked our rear view mirror. We casually noticed a police cruiser behind us. As the traffic light turned green, we went on through the intersection, and then came the flashing blues behind us. We smoothly and quickly pulled over to the right, we thought, to get out of his way. A little flicker of nerves came up in the car as he pulled in behind us. We waited as the officer got out and walked up to my instructors-side window. I rolled it down and took a deep breath. He asked us if we had recently been on a specific local road, where we had not. He then explained that he was looking for a car exactly matching the make, model and color of ours, minus the big yellow sign of course. He was incredibly polite, and further explained that he was pretty sure it wasn’t us, and reassured my student that he had not done a single thing wrong. He had been driving well, pulled right over, and had nothing to worry about. We wished him luck in his search for whomever he was looking for, and with one last smile and equally wishing us luck with our drive, got back in his cruiser and drove away. With a nervous laugh and look of disbelief, we pulled back out into traffic and went on our merry way.
In all my years as the driver’s ed lady, I have had so many positive interactions with police officers. We’ll have to do a post about what to do when pulled over soon… In the meantime, one last big thank you to all the police officers in our area for all that they do for me, my students, and our community.
This week’s winner for Main Street Monday is… bicycle texting boy.
Joe and I were driving down Main St. and stopped at a red light. We looked over to see a man riding his bicycle down the wrong side of the road. Now, lot of people think that bicycles are supposed to be on the sidewalk, which is not true. On Main St., I may occasionally feel that with all the traffic the sidewalk looks like a safer place to ride but this is not technically correct. Bicycles are supposed to be just like cars, on the road, following all the same rules. He should have been on the right side of the road going with traffic. We do give him thumbs up for wearing a helmet.
Not only was this man on the wrong side of the road, but he was out in the middle of an oncoming lane. He may not have noticed since he was staring at his phone, texting. Look ma, no hands! Thankfully, it was a red light because pointed straight at him in the lane in which he was biking was a big blue city bus.
We watched and waited, and while it was close, he didn’t actually ride his bike straight into the front of the bus. It would have been pretty funny, since the bus wasn’t moving and he probably wouldn’t have gotten too hurt. We think it might have been the wake-up call he needed though. So, once again the winner for craziest thing we saw this week on Main St. is… bicycle texting man who almost hit a city bus. Thanks for playing, tune in to see who it might be next week!
So this past weekend I went with friends to see Ed Sheeran, (insert teenage girl scream here!) It was a great show. On the way home there was predictably a LOT of traffic. In an attempt to get everyone out of the stadium they had opened up extra lanes of traffic using cones and orange barrels. This means people were driving on the wrong side of the road, which feels really strange if you’ve never tried it. It’s really well marked and it makes sense, but it still feels weird. My friend was driving, and it was late at night, (for us.)
We were driving in the right lane, and reached a spot where there was a big orange diamond shaped sign that said, “Traffic permitted in break-down lane from this point.” My friend looked at me and said, “Should we?” I shrugged and said,”Why not? The sign says it’s OK.” So we moved over into the break-down lane and drove slowly. The lane is just wide enough to allow travel, but it’s clearly not intended for that use. We passed a few cars, and one lady was not happy with us, yelling out her window. Again, we talked about it and decided since the sign said we could be in this lane, we would keep on goin’. There were a few other cars using the break-down lane also, but not many.
A little further down the road we we came up to a big ol’ black dually pickup truck with a vanity plate I’ll not reveal. It was hard to tell if he was just big and having a hard time staying in his lane or if he was trying to block traffic in our “lane.” As the car in front of us tried to squeeze by the big truck abruptly swerved right at him. Horns were honked, and the car in front of us tried once more to pass the big truck. Once again the big truck made it really difficult for the car to pass, but he snuck by. My friend decided not to tangle with the big truck so we were able to pull in behind him thanks to the kindness of the car behind him. We then watched as he purposefully swerved towards and almost hit at least five cars who tried to pass him on the right.
Now I understand that the truck driver thought that the people travelling in the break-down lane were trying to pull a fast one and do something illegal and annoying by not following the same rules everyone else does, especially late at night and in really heavy traffic. He was understandably annoyed, and after the concert possibly had a few adult beverages. However, there was in fact a sign permitting the use of that lane, which the truck driver had apparently not seen. We wouldn’t have been in that lane if we thought it was not allowed. The real problem was his response to the situation.
It is not your job to police the roads. You can be annoyed that people are driving badly. You can yell at them from the safety of your car. But, he almost caused several accidents trying to make his point. So at the end of they day, (or really long night in this case,) who was really the problem on the road? I think it was the truck driver. I hate it too when people think that rules don’t apply to them and they try to sneak through life with shortcuts. That does not make it OK to almost cause more accidents trying to get a point across. It says right in the drivers manual that the first responsibility of a driver is to avoid accidents regardless of who has right-of-way. The best thing we can do is make sure everyone gets where they are going safely. I understand frustration, but you can be right, or you can be dead right. Please make safe choices. This is much better than trying to teach someone else a lesson. Let them learn on their own. Be responsible for your own good choices, and get home in one piece.
Now that everyone around here is back to school, I thought it would be a good time to talk about school bus safety. Nothing can be more important than keeping our kids safe. Bus drivers have so much responsibility keeping to their routes, navigating traffic, staying on time, and keeping track of all of the many students on board. Let’s not be one more thing they have to worry about.
We all know what a school bus looks like – big and yellow. It says “School Bus,” in big letters on the side. This should make it easy to notice. If you see a bus, look for clues that it will soon be stopping. The bus driver will put on yellow flashing lights to signify that the bus is slowing down and preparing to pick up or drop off students. When they are ready to actually stop, the lights will switch to flashing red lights, and often a stop sign will swing out of the side of the bus and perhaps an arm will swing out from the front of the bus. The side “Stop” sign is designed to be one more warning to oncoming drivers, and the arm on the front makes it so the kiddos have to walk out and around making it easier for the bus driver to see them , keeping them out of their blind spot.
If you see a bus with red lights flashing and you are behind them, you must stop 25 feet behind them. That way the bus driver can still see you through their rear-view mirror. If you stop too close, you are in another blind spot. If you are on a multiple-lane road, all cars must still stop the same 25 feet back.
If you are coming towards a bus with red lights flashing, you must also stop the same 25 feet away from the bus to give students room to cross in front of the bus if need be. This can be tricky since you may not know exactly where the bus will finally stop. If you see them slowing down, you should too, and make every reasonable effort to stop. If the bus winds up going past you, you may continue. The only exception will be if you are on the opposite side of a divided road, such as a guard rail or median. Then you do not need to stop. Check out this video of a close call this week from an oncoming vehicle that did not stop.
You should stay stopped until the bus driver turns off the red flashing lights and starts to move or signals you to proceed.
A quick word for the students waiting for the bus. Please stay back from the road while waiting. Your bus driver knows your stop, and will look for you. You do not want to be too close to oncoming cars who might get too close to you. Be safe!
Now, everyone asks me why there are not seat belts in school buses, and I have to say, no one has ever given me a good reason on that one. I’ll have to do some more research and get back to you. Have a great school year, everyone!
