Driving

Ah, driving. It's a great thing when you're a teenager. Youth, freedom, adventure, all found behind the wheel. Remember that time period between getting your learner's permit and taking your behind the wheel test? When you dreamed of what glorious expeditions would follow as you cruised down Main Street doing 80, blasting music with the top down and your majestic, Fabio-esque locks flowing in the wind? In the middle of winter, of course. Because you didn't care about logic, or weather, or birds crapping in your hair. You were free.

 

Pictured above: freedom

I italicized free, but I should have italicized were, because that time period comes and goes pretty fast. And when it's over you realize how petty and hopeless all your dreams turned out to be. Driving does not free your spirit. It does not enhance your looks, or help you build lasting friendships with your peers, or give you straight A's in school. And it certainly doesn't help transform you into an Italian modeling god with perfect hair.

Or does it?

Driving is just a task, a necessity that we have grown too attached to to get rid of, despite how much we all grow to hate it. It does nothing but make our pathetic, miserable lives that much more pathetic and miserable. It is a scourge of modern civilization, a plague on our existence, an indescribable evil. Why?

Because everyone who has ever driven is an idiot.

You may be thinking "Oh Mike, that's not true!", or "Not me, I'm a good driver!". But if you are thinking either of those things then you are simultaneously wrong and an idiot. There is no such thing as a "good driver"; if there were, we wouldn't need signs telling us to slow down in front of schools and stay quiet in front of hospitals. In a perfect world, we'd let common sense tell us that honking at diseased patients and mowing down tiny children in crosswalks are typically frowned upon.

But this isn't a perfect world, this is America. Where we let sophomores in high school, who already have enough on their plate with their algebra and their Spanish and their coloring books, operate 3000-pound death machines with top speeds upwards of 100 miles per hour. But hey they took an eight week course in school so they're qualified!

Pictured: Qualified experts

I remember my driving test vividly, for two reasons. For one, it was one of the top five nervous moments of my life at the time. But second, and more important, it was one of the top three easiest tasks I have ever accomplished, right behind learning to use the microwave and taking Calculus at 7:30 in the morning.


I remember thinking it was a joke. I had only taken four hour-long driving training sessions, none of which had me drive in crowded city traffic or busy parking lots. You know, the two things I really suck at and still have trouble with to this day. And then there I was, waiting in the DMV with sweaty palms, heart beating out of my chest, for what?


A test that ended up lasting eight minutes.


I drove around the block, through a neighborhood, and then back to the DMV, where I was told I was a "marvelous" driver. Which wasn't true; I received three deductions for coming slowly out of a curve, failing to look over my shoulder before turning, and mild speeding. That was three out of the maximum fifteen deductions I could have gotten, and still passed. So next time you're driving in America and you see some moron weaving in and out of lanes, speeding, and putting other people's lives in danger, make sure you give him fifteen chances before you get mad.


And I say America because it really is a problem with our system. We wouldn't have these morons if we trained our drivers properly. There are countries that are worse, sure, but then there are countries that are so much better. Like Sweden.

No surprise, their flag is literally a four-way intersection

If you're not up-to-date on the latest international motor vehicle rules and regulations, then this nifty Wikipedia article should fill you in. Swedish drivers begin training at age 16 and may receive their license once they are 18, after a two year process that includes 22 preliminary tests and training exercises before they take the actual driver's test. 

But that doesn't matter, right? There's morons everywhere, no matter what the law states. True, but if Sweden is full of morons, it's at least full of safe morons. Note Sweden's fatality rate, second lowest in the world, fourfold better than the good old US of A. 

But no one complains. No one blames this lack of training for these fatal accidents. It is the norm and so we have adjusted, and drivers can remain as idiotic as they please, as they are the majority. So long as they stay out of Sweden, of course.

It's sad that the novelty of driving and the sense of teenage freedom that comes with it can evaporate so fast. We live in a wonderful modern world, where truly marvelous advancements in technology have made it so we can literally erase the distance between ourselves and the world around us with ease. We have modern experts of science and engineering that devote their lives to building us shiny toys and convenient luxuries, with the sole purpose of improving the quality of our lives. 

And all of it is wasted on idiots.