How I (Didn’t) Learn to Drive

Most young women did, but lots of us didn’t

It has to be noted that this “trusted” person wasn’t the only one in our family who couldn’t be trusted and should never, ever have been allowed to be alone with any of us girls.

He was someone we trusted. Meaning my parents trusted him. He came over often to sit, drink coffee and talk.

When he offered to give my younger sister and me driving lessons, my parents were grateful. They certainly didn’t want to do that. At first, he’d take us out together in his old white station wagon. He’d drive outside of town to deserted county roads and then my sister and I would take turns sitting on his lap and steering while he worked the gas and brakes.

Everyone drove cars. Everyone still does just about every place except where I currently live and even here a staggering number of people own cars and drive (why?).

Most of the people in this country couldn’t manage without access to a reliable car. Their jobs are miles from their homes; their parents and families live in other states or counties, doing the weekly food shopping is all but impossible without a car. Getting your drivers’ permit at age 16, taking driving lessons, learning to parallel park, taking the driving test, and getting your drivers’ license are rites of passage. The struggle to keep a decent car running is never-ending in more lives than anyone can count or wants to admit.

There came a day when my sister wasn’t home when he came for a driving lesson. I didn’t think anything about it. I jumped into the old wagon and away we went.

Where is this going? You know.

I don’t even remember the first time he began sliding his hands up under my t-shirt but I do remember that it felt good. I was probably 14. One or two “lessons” later, he slid his hand down the front of my shorts and into my underpants.

“He tried to put his hands up my shirt!” this in a furious late-night whisper from my sister.

I understood right there that my sister had stopped him. Like a good, healthy girl. She wasn’t a dirty freak like me. I was filled with shame but the next time he arrived in the driveway and tapped the horn, I was out the door like a shot. I don’t think I learned much about driving that summer. In fact, two years later I failed Drivers’ Ed the first time and had to take it over.

This was after the day he came by when no one was home. I’d been in the tub and dashed down to meet him in my bathrobe. Memory goes a little sideways here but I do remember the look of paralyzed horror on his face when I opened my robe. I was sure this was what he wanted so his reaction confused me. Next I knew he was gone and I was just standing there.

There were no more driving lessons after that

I barely managed to pass Drivers’ Ed the second go-round but dutifully got my drivers’ permit.

My first and only drivers’ test was a horror show. The minute I got behind the wheel everything moved too fast, was too big, out of my control. I couldn’t remember everything I was supposed to keep track of. The person giving the test barked at me so that I got even more confused. I didn’t pass.

When I moved out of my parent’s home I always found myself living with someone who did the driving.

There was that ill-fated night at the company Christmas party where I went into a black-out rage when I thought George had gone off to smoke pot with his co-workers, leaving me alone. I do recall storming out to the car and there was a hazy decision to be made coming off the freeway. I made the wrong turn and then found myself in a ditch, struggling to shove the car door open in the snow and making my way to the nearest house to get help. George didn’t even get mad at me; he was just so sad when he and a friend came to get me.

There have been one or two other times when I’ve driven and it always makes me feel anxious to the point of throwing up. There’s just too much at stake. What if I kill someone?

What was wrong with me?

I liked it. I wasn’t supposed to like it. I was sure I’d been giving him some kind of signal. I lived for thirty years in the certainty that there was something deeply wrong with me that I actively sought it out. I’d be gutted with shame after, but I never passed up the chance for a lesson.

No, I still don’t have the drivers’ license but I have had years and years of therapy and help to understand that of course my body reacted positively to that kind of touching.

I didn’t give him any signals and even if I had, it’s on him to ignore them. He’s the adult.

Will I ever get a drivers’ license? Doubtful. I loathe cars. I hate car culture. I see it destroying our environment, leading in a huge way to out-of-control climate catastrophe, and trapping people into a hellish lifestyle that demands hours and hours of their short lives be spent earning money to keep a car running and then sitting in traffic every day. We’ve been sold a lie that cars equal freedom but they are nothing but a trap.

And those driving lessons?

That kind of thing is going on in so many more families than anyone is ready to admit. It wasn’t an anomaly. Some version of what happened to me is happening to thousands of girls all over the world today. Will they ever understand that they didn’t do anything wrong? Will they ever be ok with their bodies as they are? Will they have the chance to raise their daughters in safety?

Will they get drivers’ licenses?

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