I remember teaching my teenage sons how to drive. My right foot stomped the floorboard constantly as I yelled “brake, brake.” There were probably fingernail holes in the dashboard as they considered stretches of open road as an invitation to practice their Daytona 500 skills.

Now our eldest grandson is practicing his driving skills. Alex and I spend a lot of time in the car together, so I’ve become one of his primary instructors.

Poor kid.

We started out in a mostly deserted school parking lot with Alex getting comfortable with the brakes and handling the steering wheel and gas pedal.

One of the toughest driving lessons is learning how wide the car is. That helps a driver stay in his or her lane without hitting a mailbox or a trash can. From first-hand knowledge of hitting both things when I learned how to drive, I knew that was an important skill.

Then there’s driving when there’s oncoming traffic. Years ago, cars were a lot smaller, but the lanes stayed the same width. Alex has to learn how to stay in his lane when an oversized F-250 truck is barreling down the other side of the road.

These are all mechanical lessons. The hardest lesson is defensive driving, namely avoiding stupid drivers.

Every time we’ve gone out, we’ve witnessed bonehead moves. I never realized how many stupid maneuvers people make until I started paying attention for Alex’s sake.

On one of our first excursions, we saw a truck come to a complete halt in the middle of a busy intersection, back up, and then turn left.

We’ve seen more than one driver run a red light, barrel through a stop sign without slowing down and cross four lanes of traffic on the freeway to exit.

In just a few outings, we’d seen enough bonehead moves to last a lifetime. But we needed to move on, and that next lesson was freeway driving.

We had a trip planned to visit Texas State University in San Marcos, and the best way to get there is Interstate 10.

In reality, few of us are equipped for the free-for-all known as I-10, but I hoped this stretch of highway away from any major cities would be a little calmer.

He handled the interstate with skill and calm. He did the same driving in the rain and driving when daylight turns dark.

With those maneuvers down pat, we moved to the next item on the learning-to-drive list – handling roundabouts. They’re supposed to be safer, but Texas drivers don’t have a clue how to drive on them.

Nobody knows who has the right-of-way, and the philosophy is whoever drives the fastest gets to merge whenever they want.

Not the lesson I want to teach, but we’ll handle that one in January.

Then there’s parallel parking. The only reason we’re going to tackle this maneuver is because it’s on the driving test. My advice to Alex was to keep driving until he found a parking lot.

One of our last lessons will be driving on I-10 to downtown Houston. Our son-in-law had our granddaughter drive there at night so she could learn interstate driving, night-time driving and how to get around city streets.

I told Alex we’d get up early on a Sunday morning and go when there’s not as much traffic. I’m not as brave as our son-in-law.

Helping Alex practice driving has been a fun shared experience, and I’m thrilled I play a small part in his learning. Wish us luck as we continue to tackle the next two hardest lessons when behind the wheel of a vehicle – parallel parking and handling bone-head drivers.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.