Driving update

We have a real driver!!

I mean he still just has his learner’s permit (won’t get his real license until next July 2024 when he turns 16), but Ethan can really DRIVE now! Like, competently and comfortably!

I haven’t said much about this all lately, so I figure I’m due for an update.

Overall, Ethan is doing AMAZINGLY well with his driving. I am generally rather impressed. He seemed to pick it up so fast.

By Day 2 with his temps license (which he got July 12), he already drove me home from his high school- which is a 30 minute drive. (Granted, traffic was light at that time of day, but still.)

He has driven on the interstate all the way to my parents’ house, a 1 hour and 15 minute drive. When he stayed with them for a week, he got tons of suburban-type driving practice (stoplights, intersections, etc.) in with them.

On August 13th, so exactly 1 month after getting his temps, we braved the local “busy” interstate + the notorious “beltline”, as it’s called here. (Basically just a regular highway, but it runs through the busiest part of the city and is locally known for being frankly a traffic nightmare- lots of traffic, tons of on/off ramps every 10 feet, which causes backups and apparently near daily accidents because people do not seem to know how to drive around here).

Of course, as he merged onto the interstate, there would have to be a ginormous semi-truck in the lane next to him…. 😆 (Remember the truck is in his own lane- just stay steady and strong in yours and there’s no issue!)

But he’s done great!! He’s done the “scary highways” (as I lovingly call them, lol) 3 times now, including once during morning rush hour to school yesterday, with Ivan. (Ivan said it was a lighter traffic day and the reports showed no backups or crashes, so a good day for his first attempt at this.)

We obviously are still giving tons of constant feedback, step by step guidance, etc. But he’s been handling it all like a champ and is overall very comfortable/ confident.

I have warned him about not being TOO confident, either, which he seems to understand. I told him: You do need to be a confident driver- that’s key. But you also have to have a healthy respect for your limitations and a healthy respect for the road.

I’d say the only thing really missing so far (thankfully, I guess?) is a lot of experience with the “OMG WATCH OUT FOR THAT TRUCK VEERING INTO OUR LANE” type of driving. “Fortunately”, most of the times we’ve been on the road things have gone generally according to plan. But as we all know, it’s the times when it doesn’t that we have to worry about…. I mean, he’s had a good variety of driving experiences so far, but certainly needs more!

In a weird and surprising way, I’m actually kind of glad that his school is farther away. I think that he is getting a lot more driving experience than he would otherwise, if we never really had much reason to leave our town.

In the long run, he will be a more skilled/ competent/ confident driver in all conditions, given that he is “growing up driving” more interstate/ higher traffic routes. It’s like anything- the more you do something, the better and more comfortable you get with it.

I talked with a swim mom friend who has an older son who has had his license for a year now and she said he really rarely ever drives out of town. He just never really has much reason to; they mostly just do local, in-town driving to the local school, gym, etc. As a result, neither he nor they are super comfortable with him driving anywhere more “challenging”. (Which, I get!!) I have another friend with a daughter in college who said the same thing- that as a newer driver, her daughter never really had any reason to drive on the highways. But now, as a result, she’s in her twenties and still isn’t comfortable driving on the interstate to this day and basically actively avoids it. So, as much as it all makes me NERVOUS in a way, I guess there are positives to Ethan getting in lots of “reps” with the busier city driving over this next year.

(*But: it will be a whole other story for me when he is alone eventually! I feel much more comfortable with it when we are right there with him, guiding him through it all. And I’m still very, very nervous about the idea of carloads of new drivers driving the to-school route alone.)

I will say though, I’m impressed/ proud of myself for being calmer and cooler about all of this than I had anticipated! Like I just said, the idea of him driving off alone still terrifies me. But even Ivan commented that he is surprised I haven’t been more of a basket case. I was the one who initially took Ethan out driving in the first days, and I was the one with him for his first highway drive, downtown city drive, etc. Ethan commented once, “You should be a driving instructor on the side! You’re actually pretty good at pointing out tips and teaching this stuff.” 😂 Yay me. 😉

Oh, and even drivers ed is high tech now: Ethan has an app on his phone which tracks all of his driving hours and we receive a weekly summary report. As of 8/24, here are his stats:

This week he drove for 5 hours and 5 minutes, but his total driving time so far is 23 hours 27 minutes already. Not bad at all considering he is only 1 month into having his temps!

By state law he needs to accumulate 50 hours of driving time before he can get his license, and he still has 11 months to go before he even turns 16. He will have no trouble hitting that total, obviously. haha.

This past Wednesday he had his first of 6 “behind the wheel” sessions with a driver instructor, too. He said it all went fine and that the instructor seemed to think he was doing great. He also said that the other student driver paired up with him (who has had her temps since April) was “so bad” and froze in the middle of a roundabout with a car coming at her. 😅 Whoops! haha.

So that’s the update. Fingers crossed/ prayers that it all continues to go well, for a lifetime! I still wish I could just bubble wrap him and never let him out of my sight…. but…. c’est la vie…. All we can do is try to prepare him as much as we can and then hope for the best! And then obsessively track his location on my iPhone. 😂

Daily Gratitude:

I am grateful for cooler temps for Ethan’s first real high school soccer game today.