Driving
Sunday, May 07 2006 Filed in: Family
Our middle son, Ben, is taking driver's ed. now, so I
have been taking him out for driving practice. We
have two vehicles to choose from, a beater '94 white
Dodge Caravan, and a bright yellow '99 5 speed New
Beetle.
The Caravan is the obvious choice to take a student driver out in for his first run, but where's the fun in that? When Cam learned to drive I let him try the Beetle. He had a pretty hard time with it, and we ended up putting it aside indefinitely. Last year Cam's summer job was about 15 miles from home and he really needed his own car, so we helped him buy an '85 Jetta. It's not the hottest ride on the road but it's been very reliable; and it's a manual tranny, so Cam did ultimately learn to master this skill. Ben really wanted to try the Bug, and I figured there's no harm in it. We went out a couple evenings last week and drove around through the cul de sacs of our neighborhood. He actually did quite well, but I think we'll go back to the Caravan until he gets a few more hours in behind the wheel. There's a whole lot going on outside the car you have to keep track of without having to think about shifting. All in all Ben shows signs of being a really good driver.
The Caravan is the obvious choice to take a student driver out in for his first run, but where's the fun in that? When Cam learned to drive I let him try the Beetle. He had a pretty hard time with it, and we ended up putting it aside indefinitely. Last year Cam's summer job was about 15 miles from home and he really needed his own car, so we helped him buy an '85 Jetta. It's not the hottest ride on the road but it's been very reliable; and it's a manual tranny, so Cam did ultimately learn to master this skill. Ben really wanted to try the Bug, and I figured there's no harm in it. We went out a couple evenings last week and drove around through the cul de sacs of our neighborhood. He actually did quite well, but I think we'll go back to the Caravan until he gets a few more hours in behind the wheel. There's a whole lot going on outside the car you have to keep track of without having to think about shifting. All in all Ben shows signs of being a really good driver.
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