How did you learn to drive?

[NeoStarO1]

WARNING LONG

Well my folks weren't very intersted in teaching me to drive. They took me out like 3 times.

So one day I bought my first car, only had a permit at the time. No clue how to drive. So I just hopped in and started figuring it out on my own. About six months later I got my drivers lience.

Had a boyfriend trying to teach me to drive a 3column shift car and was frusterated with that and more or less gave up after a few times.

Now how i learned to drive a stick shift is really a funny story. I was oh gosh I think about 18 at the time. I didnt' own a car anymore and pretty much just walked everywhere I went. I went to my girlfriends house as we had plans that evening and she totally spaced out that I was coming over and she had this "hot" date with this guy. Anyways she was in hurry to shove me out the door and said, here take my car and come back when the outside porch light is on. if its off don't come to the door. Im like no thank you I'll just walk and gave her the keys back, she insisted i take the car, i kept giving her the keys back and said no thanks, i'll walk and she said no, you can take my car and shoved the keys on me and pushed me out the door and locked the door and screamed don't come back if the lights off. im like Ohhhhhh crap!!!! Why was i thinking this? because I knew she had a 5speed car. Im like crap, I have no clue how to drive this sucker. I didn't want to hurt her feelings sooooooooooooo knowing i had about 3 hours with this car i figured what the hell, its night time and time to learn a stick shift.

So to make it look like i knew how to drive, i started the car and kept it in nuetrual, fortunatly she lived on a hill and I was able to coast to the bottom of the hill to get out from front of her house. Then it took me about 6 or 8 tries just to get going in first gear. Im thinking now, okay im in first gear now what? shift to second gear and go faster, chuggg whirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr die, Opps. I think i killed the car. So started again adn kept this up for about 4 hours just driving anywhere with no destination in mind. I killed it quite a bit. even one time i killed it and someone stopped and asked if i needed help, i said no, car is just going bad. Thank you anyways. LIE LIE LIE LIE anways, finally house light was on and walked up door and gave her keys and left and walked home. bout 3 miles.

Then never touched another stick till i went to work for the city, and they asked me can i drive a stick? I said, well ummmmm hahhahaa, and told him the story of this and he said, yup you can dirve, if it dies just start it again, they are just city rigs. im like

What he neglected to tell me was these city rigs required you to start out in 2nd gear!!!! Finally toward the end of summer and always killing the rigs starting out in 1st gear i asked another buddy of mine at work, and said, ya know im having trouble with driving these rigs, i start out and they always die on me. he asked what gear i was in and i said you always start out in first gear duh!!! Totally innocent like. he busted up laughing so hard and said not these rigs, they are designed to pull heavy loads like my paint truck, you MUST start in second gear always!!!!! im like. oh my, okay, um and turned around and was soooo embarresed. then i deced ti test if he was right. Yup he was right, once i started going in second gear from stop it worked like a charm. LOL

Was quite the experience learnign to drive cars, expecially shifts. I no problems with shift now. LOL

[kenyg]

At 16, my dad taught me to drive - just enough to pass the test. I got my license, but was never allowed to drive anywhere.

At 17, I joined the Army. I pretty much learned to drive on an army jeep - I was a grindin fool for a while -

Now the first time I drove a motorcycle, it took me a while to get that hand-clutch down.. I think I stalled at every stop sign and redlight on the way home from the dealer - ('never driven a bike before, Nooooo problem... they let me drive a little 200cc bike around the parking lot for a while).



Ken

[NeoStarO1]

cool, another grinding gear fool like myself.

[fatal xception]

My 1st car was a 65 mustang (3 speed). 1st day I am driving with my dad. I come to a hill with a stop light. A cop pulls up right behind me. I am freaking because if I drift back, I am going to hit him. My dad says "Don't worry, just let the clutch out and start normally. The light turns green and (Oh, I forgot to mention they were resurfacing the road with gravel and tar) I drop the clutch. Tar and pebbles fly onto the cop's hood. I shoot through the light and immediately pull over to the side. The cop just drives on by laughing. I guess he figured nobody would be stupid enough to burn rubber with his dad in the passenger seat and a cop behind him.

[MDS]

i started on the farm at age 10 and never drove an automatic till Hight School,talk about a wierd feeling not needing to shift I started on a 1966 GMC truck 3 on the tree and from there I got my first truck at age 15 paid for by me from bailling hay. It was a 1972 chevy 3/4 ton 4wd of corse a standard I have own so many trucks and cars since that time but only 2 of them have been auto and one been my wife's new van

[NeoStarO1]

Fatal xception,

That is halarious, probably bout the only time a person get away doing soemthing like that.

[calebmandrake]

That's a classic Fatal! ROFL!

[troyt75]

Good reading. I started out driving on my Granddads lap in the early 70s

My older brother was into tinkering on cars and that got me interested in cars also.

So when I was 14-15 I got to have an old beater (64 Galaxy 3 on the tree) that I drove around the backyard (had a big backyard)

Any way all the tinkering led to me going to tech school for Diesel repair and I got a job were I could drive a dump truck (13 speed) if I wanted to so I got my class B.

That led to me getting my class A and going over the road for a "short" while. I got home sick and my wife didn't like the worry.
BTW driving in Chicago and ST Louis is not fun in a 18 wheeler that weighs 80k lbs.

So now I'm a school bus driver.

Heh, my dad gave me the keys to the 78 Pinto and said "Have at 'er." Tought myself pretty much. We had a quarter mile long gravel driveway. Needless to say I put quite a few holes in it. :P Then I got my grandma's 81 Corolla. No more stick, but lots of fun.

Now I'm training myself for baja and rally racing (trucks). Good fun stuff, this.

-Whir

[korgul]

Started with a 2 1/2 ton truck on the German autobahn. Talk about a feeling of power. Could never understand why everyone just got out of my way when I merged.

korgul