Soccer Dad

In gamber for gas and other waystations on the road to independence

In recent months I've found myself in Gamber, Maryland. I don't suppose it helps much to tell you that Gamber is eight miles south of Fowblesburg along Route 91. But it is.

There's another distinguishing feature about Gamber. There are a couple of gas stations there, and the gas at those stations is roughly ten cents cheaper than it is closer to home. So I'd travel an hour (round trip) to get the cheaper gas in Gamber.

But what sort of sense does that make? If I used two gallons of gas to get back and forth from Gamber, was it really cheaper? And at this time of high oil prices why should I be doing my part to consume more fuel and thus drive up the price more?

Well, finding cheap gas wasn't the goal of these trips to Gamber. It was to fulfill the dictates of Maryland state law. New drivers require 60 hours behind the wheel to qualify for taking the driving test. (I believe that's 10 times as much time as required 30 years ago, when someone I know was learning to drive.) 60 hours is a lot of time. But spending those 60 hours (or most of them anyway) in the company of a pleasant and charming 16 year old was enjoyable even if a little taxing.

When we decided that we were trying to get the license by early June, I started coming up with routes to burn more and more of the time. Go to a Target a half hour away instead of ten minutes away. Go around the Beltway. Go out to Elicott City and back. Go the Pennsylvania and back. Go out Liberty Road and return through Owings Mills via Lyons Mill Road.

Yes we learned our way around. In the end, our most common route was going out 795 into Carroll County and then going to Gamber. It not only afforded us the opportunity to score some cheap gas, it also required her to drive in different circumstances: there was the highway, the local roads and, finally, the winding rural road with no street lights. As time went on she got better at all 3 types of roads. (I find "winding rural roads" at night the most difficult at my age, but she learned to handle them with grace.)

Since we got gas, it also afforded me the opportunity to teach her how to fill the car and clean the windshields.

Yesterday, was the big day. After having a problem with parallel parking - oh, yes, we spend a number of hours learning and practicing parallel parkin - on Friday when she took the test, yesterday she passed. We now have a third driver in the family.

Of course there are concerns. While it may be that

... the worst teenage threat was the time it takes to dial a cell phone. (Adults click in a number or two, then check the road, then click in more numbers; teenagers just click in the whole sequence, road be damned.)

I'm not concerned about our daughter. She is extremely responsible and knows that she's forbidden from using a cell phone while driving. Still Malcolm Gladwell observes

Every two miles, the average driver makes four hundred observations, forty decisions, and one mistake. Once every five hundred miles, one of those mistakes leads to a near collision, and once every sixty-one thousand miles one of those mistakes leads to a crash.

Of course the point is that most of what we do is automatic and usually it's correct. (I think my daughter reached the point of automatic at about 40 hours, making me wonder if 60 hours isn't a bit overkill.)

Still, we're not perfect, not even the best of us. And as parents we're entrusting one of our most expensive possessions to one of our most precious. It is a time of joy as she experiences newfound freedom. (She has a little sister who's no trying to figure out this crawling thing.) But it's also a time of concern. Michael Dresser of the Baltimore Sun recently wrote about a book for parents of new drivers.

Fifteen years, nine months. For Maryland parents, it's one of those milestone events. Just 189 months after you changed that first dirty diaper, your hormonally hopped-up teenager becomes eligible for a learner's permit.

And you have all of six months to turn this child into something other than the worst menace on the state's roads.

Since I didn't find out about the book he recommended in the column until we were nearly finished with the 60 hours. In another few years perhaps I'll read that book for number 2.

But for now, my daughter's licensed to drive. And I'm the one who taught her. I've seen enough of her driving to be convinced that she's ready. Still it's one more step on the road to her independence from us. It's something I view with pride and a bit of nervousness as she takes one more step away from the nest. (How's that for a mixed metaphor?)

Driver's License.

Posted by SoccerDad at June 12, 2007 6:20 AM