![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aSo I've lived in Berkeley for almost exactly thirty years and three months. I've had a driver's license the whole time. And I've never driven in Berkeley. To be precise, my last car I owned never made it north of Fremont or so.
But, I'm absolutely going to need a car in Kauai, so today I scheduled a driving lesson, and drove the streets of Berkeley for the first time.
I was nervous as heck, getting behind the wheel for the first time in thirty years, but the instructor, R., was entirely encouraging. And as she suggesting doing increasingly "ambitious" stuff like pulling onto a major street, making an unprotected left-hand turn, and making a U-turn, I did those things. Soon, I was zooming all around Berkeley.
But I found it weird, even disturbing, being in a box where my sound and vision were all so cut off. I'm used to biking, and when biking I have great visual perception everywhere if I just turn my head around. But here I was depending on these little mirrors and looking over my shoulder. It was nerve-wracking and made me feel really separated from the environment. (I also was never really comfortable about where the right side of my car was.)
And I think one of the most dangerous things about cars is that they're so easy to go in. You just push down on the gas, you just slightly turn you wheel and you're pushing a large, fast vehicle all around.
I'm really happy that I chose to do this lesson in Berkeley, because it meant I was super familiar with all the streets. I pretty much knew where I was going at all times, and so I could concentrate on the driving, not the navigating.
I drove through several neighborhoods, but I also went down Ashby and and Alcatraz and MLK and back and forth on Shattuck, even through the new reconfigured area around Shattuck Square (which seems to have made a horrible mess of traffic at Shattuck & Center. I drove up to the Arlington Circle in North Berkeley and then back and along the top of campus to the much less challenging circle at Piedmont & Channing.
I was often intimidated by being out on the roads, but everything went well, so it was a positive experience, even if I was a little drenched in sweat after two hours of that. Near the end the driving instructor was running out of things for me to try, and at the end she said she thought I was ready to drive.
Whew. It'll take a while for me to feel truly comfortable behind the wheel, but that was a good start. And I think the other benefit of having that lesson in Berkeley is that I'm going to find the streets of Kauai less chaotic, with less traffic going every which way and (especially) fewer bicyclists and pedestrians.
In a few months, my world is really going to be a different place.
But, I'm absolutely going to need a car in Kauai, so today I scheduled a driving lesson, and drove the streets of Berkeley for the first time.
I was nervous as heck, getting behind the wheel for the first time in thirty years, but the instructor, R., was entirely encouraging. And as she suggesting doing increasingly "ambitious" stuff like pulling onto a major street, making an unprotected left-hand turn, and making a U-turn, I did those things. Soon, I was zooming all around Berkeley.
But I found it weird, even disturbing, being in a box where my sound and vision were all so cut off. I'm used to biking, and when biking I have great visual perception everywhere if I just turn my head around. But here I was depending on these little mirrors and looking over my shoulder. It was nerve-wracking and made me feel really separated from the environment. (I also was never really comfortable about where the right side of my car was.)
And I think one of the most dangerous things about cars is that they're so easy to go in. You just push down on the gas, you just slightly turn you wheel and you're pushing a large, fast vehicle all around.
I'm really happy that I chose to do this lesson in Berkeley, because it meant I was super familiar with all the streets. I pretty much knew where I was going at all times, and so I could concentrate on the driving, not the navigating.
I drove through several neighborhoods, but I also went down Ashby and and Alcatraz and MLK and back and forth on Shattuck, even through the new reconfigured area around Shattuck Square (which seems to have made a horrible mess of traffic at Shattuck & Center. I drove up to the Arlington Circle in North Berkeley and then back and along the top of campus to the much less challenging circle at Piedmont & Channing.
I was often intimidated by being out on the roads, but everything went well, so it was a positive experience, even if I was a little drenched in sweat after two hours of that. Near the end the driving instructor was running out of things for me to try, and at the end she said she thought I was ready to drive.
Whew. It'll take a while for me to feel truly comfortable behind the wheel, but that was a good start. And I think the other benefit of having that lesson in Berkeley is that I'm going to find the streets of Kauai less chaotic, with less traffic going every which way and (especially) fewer bicyclists and pedestrians.
In a few months, my world is really going to be a different place.