Driving!

Last week, our 15 year old ventured to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get his driving permit. He's been enrolled in drivers education classes since mid- October now but has only done the classroom work. He attends every Sunday and says its sooo boring. But he's almost there - only four more classroom sessions to go (one regular session with three make ups due to soccer games) and then is on solely to the driving portion so we really needed to secure that permit ASAP. 

Drivers Permit - Pass!

First, we needed to book an appointment with the DMV to secure the permit so he could start his 8 hours of driving with an instructor (two per month) and complete that by the state deadline of mid-July. (Let me just say that having an appointment with the DMV was way easier than any previous DMV experience. I hope that continues after COVID!) Once we arrived, after some document verification, he had to take an online test which he did little to prepare for (mostly because I sprang that appointment on him after he came home from school one day). He did, however, do a few practice tests in the car on the way there. But I'm sure he was super nervous especially after he told me he got the first question wrong and started to panic but then righted himself and passed the test. He came out smiling with permit in hand. 

The permit allowed me to book his in-person driving lessons since he's completed the majority of his classroom work. We've had a lot of snow recently so he was really reticent about me booking him a driving lesson in the snow. He also didn't want me to schedule anything when it was dark out. Then he just plain admitted that he wasn't ready to drive yet. I knew he just needed to do it to see that it wasn't that hard so I booked an appointment for last Saturday. He was super nervous so Tom did a little driving with him about 30 minutes before his lesson and said he did well but they didn't hit any major roads. Well, right off the bat, the driving instructor took him out on the major roads. He had to turn right on red on a major road with traffic. Austen gives it some gas and guns it. The driving instructor asks him what kind of car he was practicing on and Austen replies, "My dad's Porsche." To which the driving instructor says, "well, that makes a lot of sense then. Just slow down on your turns." Despite his lead foot on the turns, he got a good report and is excited about driving now that he shook off the jitters. He's still a little hesitant about driving at night (his vision is beyond perfect so not sure what his concern is) but I feel like once he does that he'll wonder why he made such a big deal about that one too. 

As for me, I'm looking forward to having one more driver in the house but I know that with that comes some worry too (and expense!).