DRIVER'S SIDE DIATRIBE
By Al Vinikour     al@motorwayamerica.com

One of my readers brought up a great suggestion for a column. He commented about drivers who must have gotten their licenses at a K-Mart Blue Light Special and are squiring their kids around?

Kids being kids, they watch everything around them — especially the activities of their parents. Consequently, when they’re within range of getting their own chances behind the wheel they’re more likely to observe how their parents drive so they can do the same. As a rough guess, in the past month they’ve probably seen one or both of their parents:
    
     Speed
     Pass on a double-yellow
     Tailgate the driver in front of them
     Go through a red light
     Turn left on a red light
     Turn right at a “No Right Turn on Red” sign
     Drive against traffic at a shopping mall parking lot
     Never use turn signals
     Seldom use seat belts
     Weave in and out of his/her lane while using a cell phone

There surely are more than 10 but these will do for today’s lesson. How many millions of parents have chidingly called their children “My little monkeys?” Well monkey see, monkey do, Bubbles. You watch a young driver engage in any of the aforementioned felonies and you can bet the farm on where he or she learned it.

When I was in high school and had to scrape brontosaurus crap from the bottom of my shoes before I walked in the house driver’s education was an elective. We were all country kids anyway so we learned how to drive at farms, parking lots, or in my case, a junkyard.

Those who didn’t take driver’s-ed and learned their questionable skills from Mr. Wiggins (who also doubled as the town’s mayor) were generally prodigies of their parents. And there’s nothing more pathetic than driving a Packard as if it were an Oliver tractor.

I can think of no more fitting justice than for a young boy to learn to drive at the hand of his father (who has been a four-year runner-up for the Mr. Magoo Safe Driving Award) and because of the things he learned from the old man, then flies through an intersection on a red light…T-bones daddy…and kills him. (Better his father than somebody else’s.) Had his late-father presented a better example of driver safety the kid may have never considered going through a red light — let alone what the consequences could wind up being.

Regular readers of my literary sickness will know my biggest driving irk are people who don’t use turn signals. Any parent who sets an example of not preaching the use of turn signals should lose those children to Family Services. I rank failure to use turn signals right up there with pedophilia; blowing through a red light should carry the same punishment as serial killing; and driving recklessly while texting and talking on a cell phone should result in the removal of a limb – two if it involves both.

Bottom line is that you as a parent think you’re the know all/be all to educate the next generation. Guess again, Samson. The stupid idiot you raise could be your own. And it’s your own fault. I doubt you’ll think of others because you obviously don’t think of yourself but instilling all your bad driving habits to your offspring…and then them conveying the same message to their own children…is like the inbreeding of the Royal Family — except in this case it can be diagnosed as transportation-al insanity.

Just remember the old adage that “those who can do; those who can’t, teach.” Next time you observe your child’s revoked driver’s license see if you can work up some parental pride.