SO learning to drive

[Randy W]

Am I the only one who didn't have any trouble? (except for a run-in with the basketball pole)

 

She is very level-headed, careful, and observant. The only thing I worry about is a ticket since she kinda cuts corners on a turn and sometimes doesn't completely stop at a stop sign. She drives to Chinatown and the grocery store, including through what has been listed as one of the most dangerous intersections in the country. She had only driven a scooter in China.

 

She had a Cantonese-speaking instructor help her study for the written exam, and then hired him again for 2 hours instruction on how to operate her new car when we bought that.

 

Then I was her driving practice instructor until she felt comfortable enough to take the test. I think she's ruled out driving on the freeway because of the subtleties of slowing down and/or speeding up to change lanes.

 

The day of her first test was, unfortunately, garbage day. She got stuck behind a slow garbage truck, and passed him "on a narrow road". The second attempt did the trick.

[Guest Byron]

I plan to get her a Chinese instructor.

 

 

My wife learned to drive from a Chinese driving instructor here in Houston. It is very important that you have an instructor teach your SO only because she will not be as nervous and intimidated as much.

 

The instructor would let them take turns and he would run his errands with a chauffeur (Student) driver. On one occasion she told me that they went to the live chicken market and he ordered a couple of chickens for his dinner. I don¡¯t think they ever taught her to drive on the freeway because she is very intimated by it.

 

I can tell most of you, the best training that I did with my wife after I got her a new car was to have her follow me and we would drive around. She did great and we even went onto the freeway with no problems. Actually, the more we did this the better she became with remembering the roads around our neighborhoods. She also wasn¡¯t as nervous because I wasn¡¯t sitting next to her.

 

Just to show you how much she drives, I bought her a new car in the year 2000 and now with 2007 around the corner she has only 20,000 miles on it and I know that I have put at least 2000 of those miles myself.

 

Andrew

[izus]

my girl has been learning as well shes doing much better then when she first started out,

she called me the other day and told me she ran into the garage by accident and was hoping i would forgive her for putting some dents on the new car

 

http://i11.tinypic.com/34oc0nn.jpg

 

 

[izus]

on a serious note my sweet lady has also been learning to drive, she has taken her licence test in beijing but did not drive much, she practices on back streets with a huge Yukon XL that i even have issue parking that boat sometimes.

i suppose they do like 20 mph on the streets of beijing cause she gets nervous much faster then that.

 

for the most part she is doing very well, she needs to relax more behind the wheel and pay more attention to her surroundings....

her mind fly's too much

Edited October 17, 2006 by izus (see edit history)

[MRMC]

Use a driving school. They are the professionals with dual control cars, etc.

[SirLancelot]

 

http://i11.tinypic.com/34oc0nn.jpg

 

 

B)

 

Holy SHIT! That's a Ferrari underneath the truck! What a waste.

[Carl]

With the topic of our wives learning to drive, I decided to bring back this gem.

 

All Asian Woman's Driving School

 

 

Enjoy

Edited October 18, 2006 by Carl (see edit history)

[izus]

With the topic of our wives learning to drive, I decided to bring back this gem.

 

All Asian Woman's Driving School

 

 

Enjoy

 

 

that is so perfect...

the parallel parking job...i think i was in the car when that was happening, except it doesnt look like my car

[Patrick & Li]

OH!!! THE HORROR!!!

I am not usually a very patient person, except with my wife. I was always soooo patient with her. But then I convinced her she needed to learn to drive. OH, The HORROR! I still wake up at nights with the cold sweats. I feel very fortunate to be alive. My wife got here in June of 2004, We started very soon after that with Driving lessons given by me. - OH, The HORROR!!! We started out in the High school parking lot, very benign. After about 2 months of learning to stop, learning to drive on the correct side of the road, I figured it was time to advance to "The Country", OH, THE HORROR! I'll never forget our 1st "Uh Oh", She was driving down this certain country road, and I as always was sitting on the edge of my seat, with that certain tenseness waiting to spring into action when she made any mistake that could kill us. I told her to take the next Right. We get about 50 feet from the road to turn but she is still going about 40mph, So I say " Honey, Are you going to turn", So at 40mph, she tries to make the turn, WOW! She actually made the turn without killing us, BUT, In her excitement, she forgets to let the steering wheel go back straight and we run off the road which is actually a 10 foot drop off. After the truck comes to a complete stop, and I get out of the car, I shake and I cuss, and she sits there and cries. I manage to get the truck out of the ditch without a towtruck. I am steaming, and she is crying and swearing she'll never drive again. 5 minutes after this incident, I realize that I was a little too strong with her and I apologize, and then I pull over to the side of the road, collect my nerve and make her drive again.

 

Now, another story. Our house was on a incline that led down to a lake. One day we get into the truck for our daily driving lesson. By this time she was about a D+ driving student. She gets into the truck, and I get in the passenger side, I wasnt really paying much attention because she had done this 100+ times. She put the truck into reverse, but instead, our truck lurched forward. I tell her to put on the break, but still rolling forward. Now, I am yelling at her, PUT THE BREAK ON! She's yelling back, I AM , I AM, Its too hard. Now we are starting to roll down the incline, and I can see the lake in front of us, and in a panic, manage to force the truck into park on the steering column. We are literally about 10 feet from disaster. After I manage to get our truck back to the parking spot, We both go back into the house, I am cussing, she is crying. Later, I realize what she has done. I have a Ford truck, she got into the truck, and before she started the truck, she put it into Reverse, Now she has no Powersteering, and No Powerbrakes, but yet the truck was rolling downhill because the Reverse wasnt stronger than gravity.

To me this is a Hazard that needs to be address by FORD.

 

My wife now has her Drivers License, and she is a pretty good driver. I no longer watch her while a passenger. It took her a long time to get to this point, but it was from neccessity that she did.

Good luck to ALL you newbies. I have lots of HORROR stories, but those 2 are my best.

 

OH THE HORROR,

Patrick

Edited October 23, 2006 by Patrick & Li (see edit history)

[tonado]

I refuse to let my wife park inside the garage with is part of our home. I worry she might back out the garage without opening the garage door. Also, she might hit the side of the house while entering or leaving the garage.

[BobandNicole]

Egad, the driving lessons. Wife's doing her Arizona license learnin' at this point. Luckily, she got a good head start back in China, she had taken driving lessons and gotten her DL there. A bit scary though, as I had to be "practice coach" there in China, and our vehicle there is a manual tranny full sized SUV. She did ok though except when she tried to add a drive-through kitchen to my friend's pub. Oh well, most of her experience before that was racing Karts, and she was rather fast and competitive racer.

 

One thing, learning to drive in China has no bearing or correlation to learning to drive here.. in China, rules? What rules? After driving for a few months there I had a hard time making the transition back here, I mean, come on, you can't even drive on the sidewalks here! And you actually have to stop for red lights. Gimme a break!!

 

So, she's passed the written, and even found an error on the test nonetheless. And now the driving part--I've set up lessons so she can get proper U.S. training, curiously enough the instructor has another Chinese woman student, which doesn't sound so strange except this is a pretty small town and there's not a lot of Chinese in the area.

 

But she can't tell right from left. "Turn right, no, the other right"

 

Bob

[jbray]

At first, she was terrible... She has a Chinese drivers license, but I dont think that really means much. When she first got in the car, she didn't know what ANYTHING was. I had to teach her where the breaks and gas were. For the first few weeks, I would sit with my hand on the emergency break (and had to pull it a few times). After about 2 months, she was actually pretty good. It's not easy learning to drive in Atlanta. It's baptism by fire. Now, she even drives on 285 (for those that don't know Atlanta, that's a huge Bypass interstate that has terrible traffic).

 

The only thing she can't do is paralel park. That's probably because I havn't taught her yet.