DRIVING

I think there is nothing that we are more critical of than one another’s driving. Men seem to think they have a corner on the skill because they were the first motorists. My dad had an eye disease in middle age that made it impossible for him to pass the eye test for a driver’s license. He would agree that Mom was a good driver but it was obviously a blow to his manhood to be the rider.

In my mother’s generation, she was part of a very small minority when she quit riding her horse to school and began propelling a ’29 Dodge from their farm to attend classes at Durand High where she was a senior.

By the time I took Drivers’ Education at the same high school during my junior year, all of the girls as well as the boys in the class took the elective course. Each of us wanted to be ready to pass the test required to obtain a state driver’s license when we turned sixteen.

Our school bus drivers were men. Today, when I meet the yellow vehicles on the road, I notice most of the people behind the steering wheels are women. Automatic transmissions plus power steering and power brakes have made buses and trucks easier to handle.

I’m sure my skills remain intact because I must pass a state required eye test and a driving test to annually renew my license. Illinois is the only state in the union to require this of its elderly.

There is probably a reason the righthand front side of a vehicle is called the passenger seat. The word begins the same way as passive, which is defined as accepting or allowing what happens or what others do, without active response or resistance. This could mean the rider does not make derogatory remarks or gestures such as stomping an imaginary brake when someone else is behind the wheel.

Do you enjoy driving?