Today was my first day driving.
About time, right!? I mean, I got my learner’s license over half a year ago and I’ve been putting this off ever since. Driving is not one of my skills (yet!), but procrastination certainly is!
I spent today absolutely shredding the asphalt at a staggering average speed of 11km/h. I know, it’s hard to believe. Before today, I didn’t know humans were even able to travel at such speeds. Anyways, that’s one of our car’s new skills: it can calculate the average speed over time intervals of driving. Speaking of which, having the new car is going to be extremely helpful through the learning process. It’s got all the newest safety features, tight steering, smooth gear shifts, and (most importantly!) Apple Car Play for when I want to watch something like Austin Powers on the road.
Only joking! That would be so irresponsible.
I’d watch a different movie instead.
If a freeway and a parking lot are the same thing, then I drove on a freeway during my first driving practice. As the classic saying goes, ‘go big or go home’. Hold on… if you ‘go big’, are you even allowed to go home? Is it possible to both go big and go home? Something to think about…
I apologize, I got a little off topic there. As I was saying, I drove in a parking lot today. It was nice to be able to cruise around without risk of hitting anyone or anything, that’s for sure. At this point, I can hardly even imagine driving on an actual street with actual cars and actual people. I would have actual fear, I think. When I was cruising around at Mach speeds, I did notice another learning driver practicing as well. We stayed far apart though because of social distancing. And, as a secondary reason, to avoid collision. I wonder if there’s a community of learning drivers who all hang out and complain about how hard driving is together.
It’s worth mentioning that I’m learning to drive on a standard transmission car, which means there is a clutch. Considering it’s name, it isn’t very clutch in actuality. It makes the initial learning curve very steep, and I have newfound respect for anyone who knows how to drive a standard vehicle. Seriously, way to go. You are very cool. I find the clutch to be very difficult to become accustomed to. Granted, it is my first day working with it, but it requires such intricate timing that half the time I couldn’t even get moving. I don’t mean to brag or anything, but I’ve got a 50% stall rate. I think that means I’m ready for the road.
Quick little skills update in closing:
Turning: Able
Puddle Avoidance: Poor
Stop Signs Ignored: None
Stop Signs Encountered: Also none
Confidence: hardly
I am genuinely looking forward to driving more. It was frustrating at times today, and I know it will take a lot of repetition to build up the correct muscle memory, but I’ll be patient with it. It’s similar to skateboarding in that way. Also, I haven’t crashed the car yet. Nicely done Seb.
I’ve been falling off as of late in terms of consistency with my posting. I’ll try to produce these at a higher rate from now on! If you have any topic ideas, please let me know in the comments. I would very much appreciate it.
Also, if anyone would like to try writing their own post, please don’t hesitate to contact me and we’ll sort it out!
Thanks for reading!
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