Sixteen in NoJoMo 2015

Write a bit about your drivers’ licence. How old were you, where did you get it? What kind of car did you drive?

I was fifteen, driving my grandfather’s Ford, because I was nervous about stalling out my dad’s manual transmission Jeep. I probably would have been fine, but i was freaked out about the rumor that you’d automatically fail if you stalled....

i had a much longer entry written about this, but I managed to lose it.

This was the day after a tropical storm had strewn the course with limbs. Because of that, the trooper didn’t make me parallel park (which might have been something I wouldn’t have been able to do in a somewhat-unfamilar car).

It was a bit odd, because I’d had no formal behind-the-wheel training. My dad was still in the Army, and I’d taken drivers’ ed in Pennsylvania.

I basically stopped driving in late 2012. After hitting some road debris, pretty seriously damaging my car, and having the ability to work from home, I stopped.

By that point, I really couldn’t read the speedometer much of the time, so I was setting my speed by the sound of the engine, and the gear I was in.

I tried again towards the end of that year, and I couldn’t make out traffic lights against green backgrounds 9think a light with a tree behind it).

Damn you, optic neuritis. http://www.mult-sclerosis.org/opticneuritis.html

I was also getting to the point where I’d often hit the brake when I was hitting the clutch. Some of that was due to the car I owned, which had rather narrow spacing between the pedals, but......

When I’m home, I rarely miss driving; I can get pretty much everywhere I want to go by public transportation. When I’m away for this job, however, I’m basically a shut-in. I can’t go anywhere once I’m at work. Where I work, I can’t even get a cab.

When I’m at my mother’s house, I can get a taxi, but it’s expensive.

Last updated November 18, 2015