Abby's First Independent Drive

Her first drive as driver-in-command, with no parent or other controlling authority present, she chose to take her sister to Starbucks for some sister time sitting down with a couple hot chockys and enjoying her first trip.

While only a mile and a half from the house, both parental units were a bit nervous, especially as that area is right by a busy intersection and there's a lot of idiot drivers in that area.

She made it there and back with no problems (we knew that would be the case, but you worry anyways) and she enjoyed her independence in doing so.

A couple hours later she took her sister to her Volleyball team practice at school. Again a close trip but again without any parental guidance, and on the way back completely alone in the car.

As expected, she did it with aplomb and no issues.

The kid is sure growing up fast, heck they both are.

Michigan's Newest Licensed Driver

So Abby re-took her driving test today.

We paid for a parking lesson first with the examiner so she could pass the cone parking test.

Having taken her to this test, I can verify that the cone setup is quite simply ridiculous and its setup in a way to make you fail the test unless you know the specific tricks and test protocol for parking in that setup, not in the real world.

This of course makes the examiners more money as they can then sell a remunerative parking lesson followed by the road test.

If you want to see the cones in action, there's a (rather cringe-worthy - trust me skip to 2:33) Youtube video.

Abby faced a similar setup, but think of it setup diagonal to the parking stripes rather than in parallel with them as in the video and with her never parking with cones before you'll get why Abby had trouble with it originally. Especially as her car lacks a backup camera or beeper and she again had never parked in the cones before but only between real cars, so it's no wonder she got nailed the first time around.

In all of 7 minutes the examiner/instructor had shown her what she wanted with the conse, Abby did it and the examiner then declared she had passed the parking portion. In short, she can park and she could park before the lesson, but we needed to pay a little extra to get the method to park in the cones down . . . in 7 minutes. Again its not skills being tested in the parking segment, but your wallet.

Then she did her road test and passed with flying colors.

At least one legislator in Michigan has the right idea and had proposed a bill back in May 2019 to eliminate the parallel parking requirement from the driving test. She's reasonably proposing to eliminate it not just because its not a commonly used technique in most of Michigan, but mainly because enough people are ticked off about failing a driving test on the simulated stupid parallel parking cone course when they can driver perfectly well.

In short, this parking segment is designed and exists to make examiners money and make it cost more for people to get their licenses unless they pay the mordida of some special parking lessons so they can get used to the cones.

It's about time this cone scam got removed from the test.

Driving By Miss Abby

The cardio health stress test continues apace, as Abby has decided she likes driving my car more than Tash's car, so I've been with her for the majority of her practices.

Today she drove to her high school, which is and will be the man reason for her getting a driver's license in the first place. We made it there no problem, not too much traffic on a Sunday aside from a bit of a jam near a church, and iut got her on some main roads and doing left turns in traffic and changing multiple lanes.

Thence we took an alternate route home so she could try merging onto a highway. Yes, my circulatory system is strong.

She did fine, traffic was light enough, and I was able to talk her through it ok. Lots of neck cranking on my part during the merge and lane changes. No permanent indentations in the armrests.

Then down to Best Buy to pickup an SD card that I had a rewards coupon for, so a 64GB SanDisk Pro card instead of costing $28 cost only $10, which is a nice bargain for a very nice and fast memory card for the camera.

She did good and parked reasonably well by the store.

Then back in the car and thence up and through a roundabout that is ranked the 2nd most dangerous intersection in the entire state, because roundabout plus traffic light - yes, really.

She did fine but did need some help on getting into the roundabout safely as it was kinda hair-raising. Again, I passed this stress test with flying colors and did not even try to curl into a ball and drop onto the floorboards, as tempting as that was.

It's interesting the things she doesn't know that she doesn't know.

For example, she was getting set in the car and I was still in the house with the keys. She got her seat adjusted, mirrors set and had the headlights full on without the car running.

I explained that wasn't a good habit to get into as it drains the battery when you leave the lights on with the car off. She didn't know that, but does now.

Other things included how far should you get over when the police have a car stopped on a road that is one lane in each direction, and traffic lights that are only flashing yellow.

I talked her through these and she did just fine. She's certainly coming along as a driver and getting smoother and more confident, which is a good thing. We spent over an hour on the road, and then to top it off, she drove herself to a friend's house in some heavy rain, which was good experience, so she definitely got her practice in today.

I figure the next driving mission will be to have her drive the gas station to teach her how to fill the car up.

That's One Way To Get A Cardio Stress Test

After 7 hours of driving with an instructor, hours of observing others drive in an instructional setting and classroom learning, Abby now has her G1 license.

She got to experience the joys of the Secretary of State office to get her license - first lining up to get a number, then over an hour and a half sitting waiting to get called up to get processed.

Good people watching though - one enraged and rather entitled lady yelling that she had her license in Detroit, moved out of state and now wants to switch her license back to Michigan but she keeps failing to being documents and she's been trying to get this done 3 times. One young lady is getting her license picture taken while she's in a costume and makeup like a baby doll - complete with pink and white makeup on her face, pink streaks in the hair and a body type really not suitable for the outfit she's wearing. I wonder if someone had her do it on a dare. That license picture is going to regrettably stick with her for a long time.

So Abby gets processed, and yes I have all the required documents, and it goes very smoothly once we actually get to the counter.

The G1 only lets her drive with a parent or other licensed adult in the vehicle, and she needs 50 hours with at least 10 at night over a 6 month period and can then proceed to a G2 license.

So I took her on her first drive at night yesterday.

This is a little disconcerting and tense as I have no additional brake nor wheel on my side of the car, its not like in a plane where you can take over from the right seat. You have to trust that she knows enough but also have to be ready to give her some hints if need be.

I had her drive to her old middle school as she has now driven the route in the day a few times to give her something familiar for her nighttime driving. She did good,and we did some practice parking and driving all around and then came back drove through the neighborhood for a bit and then back home for a good first experience.

I am rather impressed with her driving instructor. She's driving quite decently if with some standard new driver hesitancy and slow speed, but I'm impressed with how far she's come already, and she'll get there. It doesn't hurt that she really pays attention to what she's doing and what is going on around her.

49 more hours to go until her G2.

If You're On Woodward Today, Watch Out, New Teenage Driver!

Yes, Abby is taking her first in-car driving lesson as we speak.

Michigan now has a graduated licensing system so for her to be allowed to learn to drive, she first needs to take this class and get her =Level 1 permit, then we can start taking her driving.

So far the classroom portion has been described as varying between deathly boring and hellishly boring.

In short the theory instructor is really lacking any effort, phoning it in and mainly playing AAA videos and repeating the info contained in them.

The workbook is pretty close to useless. For example the dashboard it has you identify gauges on depicts gauges that aren't on most cars these days including an ammeter gauge, a battery gauge, and a manifold pressure gauge for a turbo - seriously.

Why is the classroom portion of driving instruction so consistently deathly boring?

You'd think they'd have improved the delivery of the material and the material itself by now. After all driving is a rather important part of people's lives and learning to do so is important. The Level 1 segment requires 24 hours of in class instruction, so there's unfortunately a lot of time for boredom as they really seem to no be using the time effectively.

Since Monday they've learned about wearing seat belts and being sure to check all around your car for obstacles before getting in and adjusting the seat and mirrors. This should take 20 minutes, not the six hours so far.

They should be able to make an engaging and instructive curriculum but for whatever reason, they dnn't. She's learning more by self-studying the What Every Driver Must Know state handbook than anything in class.

Well, 6 hours of in-car instruction and 4 hours of in-car observation should prove to be instructive.