Driver's Ed

I remember the first day of Driver's Ed. I remember Mr Tarrant telling all of us we will be driving a two ton killing machine. I remember being appropriately afraid. Scaring the daylights out of teens who naturally think they are invinsible is a good thing. Gory pictures of people with poles sticking out of their bodies. Heart wrenching poems from kids allegedly bleeding out written to the moms they left behind, those were GOOD things!
Today I had to sit in with Alex's first driver's ed class. He will remember almost falling asleep, twice. There was no jarring.....wake up you could kill someone! There was a whole lot of going over the new laws in CT, twice written a third time read thru each written and then finally a video put out by the state, and even though we are in a state of the art auditorium, we watched it on the same portable TV I watch my lame videos on.

There was lengthy explanation that they had to wait an hour after each beer to drive ( REALLY??? these are TEENAGERS!) There was a few minutes making jokes about how crack, weed and booze don't mix with driving. How about they don't do your body any good either ?? and oh yeah, they are illegal, he may have mentioned that off hand. The primary message to parents was if your kid screws up and totals the car, do not run out and get them a new car. a duh??? I don't know maybe someone in the room needed to hear that.
I just feel that if the state of CT wants 2 hours of my time, please make it worth it. It could have been covered in 30 minutes. I think the boys' dad & I will draw straws for the next one.

I want my son to learn how to drive, carefully. I want there to be a machine set up to lower his teststerone once he gets behind the wheel. These classes need to do more than drone, after all, these kids have been sitting for 6 hours already. When we were walking out Alex asked me how many more he had to take, I hated telling him he would be sitting thru 15 more classes like that. Hopefully not like that. They are being taught skills to navigate the largest weapon, with any luck, most of them will ever encounter. I do hope he will be engaged and able to focus. Keep your fingers crossed for us.