And I’m not saying this because my 16 year old son failed, again. He did finally pass his test last week, and is somehow now allowed on the roads without me in the car telling him what to do all. the. time. Actually, he should have passed it the first time but didn’t because he couldn’t read the instructor’s mind.
So this is my beef with “the test:”
Why is anyone given the okay to drive in the real world just because they were able to parallel PARK in a FAKE parking spot, and then, uh, make a U-TURN? In real life, I mess up parallel parking all the time– and I actually have to parallel park regularly. I hit the curb. I park on the curb, sometimes one wheel, sometimes both. So what? As long as you are off the road, and people can drive around you, who cares?
(Actually, I’m really good at parallel parking and like pointing out my super-fly parking skills to my kids all the time, but that has nothing to do with driving. I mean, I AM a really, REALLY good driver, too, but….)
Okay, maybe parking should be on a driving test, but it should not be the main focus of it. It should not be the thing that you fail the driving test for. Neither is the U-turn! I’m pretty sure that U-turning is a no-brainer that you spontaneously do in the heat of the moment because you missed a turn somewhere, not because it’s a skill you practiced so that you could do it correctly in some terrible parking lot in the middle of nowhere once. U-turning was not on the test when I took it 150 years ago, nor was it on the test when my older son took 2 years ago at the same DMV in New Kensington (not to name names or anything). I AM REALLY glad that they tested whether my son could stop at the imaginary intersection with the invisible stops sign and look both ways (R-L-R, please) for fake traffic and no existing roads or even visible lines demarcating fake roads.
This is a DRIVING test?
I think a true driving test should take place out onto the real road with real other cars driven by real people with real road rage and real stop signs and real traffic signals, and then they need to merge onto the real highway at real speeds and deal with real road rage there, too. Finally, if parking needs to be on the test, they should have to go to a Whole Foods parking lot. If they can survive pulling into and out of a parking space without smashing into all the other terrible drivers who seem to want to hang out there, and actually make it out of said parking lot unscathed, then yes, they can have a driver’s license.
