Zap
Elite Member
Inspired by this post:
I'm sure there are other gems out there.
Here's mine, from driver's ed back in high school.
1) While driving down a highway, suddenly the instructor told me to take the next right, which was coming up really soon. He really didn't give me much time to slow down, so I took the corner pretty hot. I had the window down and my elbow hanging out. When I took the corner the instructor's eyeglass case, which was on the dash in front of him, slid across the dash and out the window. I caught it on reflex. He said, "hey, um, you went kind of fast around that corner." My reply was to hand him his eyeglass case.
2) We had gotten into a routine on our route. One day driving down the road I suddenly see a stop sign that I haven't seen before, right as we're almost going into the intersection. I slam on the brakes! The instructor said quizzically, "what did you do that for?" I mutely pointed at the stop sign. We looked at it for a moment, and he asked, "was it there before?" We had just gone this way the day before and don't remember seeing it.
3) This happened to some other students with a different instructor. I say "students" because we did two per drive - trading off. Their instructor had gotten them on the freeway (ours never did for some reason) and then... their instructor fell asleep. Now, I also have to add that most of these drives were done in the early mornings before classes started, and before there was much traffic on the roads. Thus, the instructor was probably not fully awake yet, plus the students took this as an opportunity to ditch school. Since they were instructed to go on the freeway and then got no further instructions, they stuck with their previous instructions. They kept going down the freeway. For two hours. The instructor woke up finally, and they got back to school safe, but late.
Bonus side stories:
Our instructor (the one I drove with) was pretty cool. He was coach for school athletics, including football. On Friday mornings when there was an evening game, he would spend half of class as a pep rally. We also once tricked him. My buddy and I found a video at a rental place. We told the instructor that we had a really cool video that taught driving, so he agreed to let us show it to the class one day. We did. The video was a compilation of car crashes!
Our instructor also told stories. The one I remember (more or less) was one from his youth. He said that BITD his family always left their car keys in their cars, for convenience. Ahhh, those days of innocence. Neighborhood kids knew this, and would take their cars out for joyrides. So, his sister had a brand new 1968 Mustang. Doors unlocked, keys in ignition. Two kids took it out for a spin. While they were driving, they saw a cop and panicked! They gunned it, and of course the cop then gave chase. They went over a railroad crossing so fast that they got airborne, and the landing took the oil pan off the Mustang. They then went into some field where the kids did a few donuts in the Mustang, before stopping the car and then hoofing it through the field. They were running so fast that the cop wasn't able to catch them. He later said that he really wished he had, because he would have made them join the school track team as punishment.
I'm sure there are other gems out there.
Here's mine, from driver's ed back in high school.
1) While driving down a highway, suddenly the instructor told me to take the next right, which was coming up really soon. He really didn't give me much time to slow down, so I took the corner pretty hot. I had the window down and my elbow hanging out. When I took the corner the instructor's eyeglass case, which was on the dash in front of him, slid across the dash and out the window. I caught it on reflex. He said, "hey, um, you went kind of fast around that corner." My reply was to hand him his eyeglass case.
2) We had gotten into a routine on our route. One day driving down the road I suddenly see a stop sign that I haven't seen before, right as we're almost going into the intersection. I slam on the brakes! The instructor said quizzically, "what did you do that for?" I mutely pointed at the stop sign. We looked at it for a moment, and he asked, "was it there before?" We had just gone this way the day before and don't remember seeing it.
3) This happened to some other students with a different instructor. I say "students" because we did two per drive - trading off. Their instructor had gotten them on the freeway (ours never did for some reason) and then... their instructor fell asleep. Now, I also have to add that most of these drives were done in the early mornings before classes started, and before there was much traffic on the roads. Thus, the instructor was probably not fully awake yet, plus the students took this as an opportunity to ditch school. Since they were instructed to go on the freeway and then got no further instructions, they stuck with their previous instructions. They kept going down the freeway. For two hours. The instructor woke up finally, and they got back to school safe, but late.
Bonus side stories:
Our instructor (the one I drove with) was pretty cool. He was coach for school athletics, including football. On Friday mornings when there was an evening game, he would spend half of class as a pep rally. We also once tricked him. My buddy and I found a video at a rental place. We told the instructor that we had a really cool video that taught driving, so he agreed to let us show it to the class one day. We did. The video was a compilation of car crashes!
Our instructor also told stories. The one I remember (more or less) was one from his youth. He said that BITD his family always left their car keys in their cars, for convenience. Ahhh, those days of innocence. Neighborhood kids knew this, and would take their cars out for joyrides. So, his sister had a brand new 1968 Mustang. Doors unlocked, keys in ignition. Two kids took it out for a spin. While they were driving, they saw a cop and panicked! They gunned it, and of course the cop then gave chase. They went over a railroad crossing so fast that they got airborne, and the landing took the oil pan off the Mustang. They then went into some field where the kids did a few donuts in the Mustang, before stopping the car and then hoofing it through the field. They were running so fast that the cop wasn't able to catch them. He later said that he really wished he had, because he would have made them join the school track team as punishment.
