I’m Never Going To Earn a Driver’s License

And, guess what? I’m not ashamed of it, either!

With gas prices so high these days, many people have been looking for excuses to reduce the amount of driving they do. Anything from carpooling to investing in hybrid vehicles to using mass transit can be options, depending on your life circumstances or finances.

Fortunately, I don’t have to worry about that.

I can’t drive. I never learned how. I don’t own a vehicle. And even if I could…I’m not so sure I’d want to.

Several weeks ago, in my writers’ group, one of our members was talking about an editorial piece she’d penned in response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Within the body of her satirical essay, she highlighted the absurdity of taking constitutional originalism to the absolute literal.

She told us, during our session of Zoom-workshopping, how so many men had reacted negatively (in her Comments Section) to the hypothetical proposal of barring all men from driving. They’d missed the point, obviously. Her intent was to illustrate the dangers of legislating morality/validity based on rigid interpretations of reductionism.

I pointed out how I, in fact, *don’t* drive.

To which she replied:

“Well, that’s your choice.”

To which I countered:

“Well, ‘it is’ and ‘it isn’t’…”

What I was trying to get at, here, is that it’s ableist to expect that a person who appears “able-passing” should be expected to have a Driver’s License by default.

If people look at me and say, “Well, he seems to have full use of his motor skills; there’s no reason he can’t learn how to drive”…

That assumption seeks to render my lived experiences invisible. She is proving my point through her satirical essay — if we’re going to have unrealistic expectations of people based on statistical data, then we’ll end up suppressing what makes people so unique, passionate, and vulnerable.

The fact that her immediate reaction was “That’s your choice!” just underscores the lack of compassion our society has for those of us who can’t drive due to somewhat complex reasons.

Teenage Airbag

At my high school, we had one Driver’s Ed teacher: Mr. Leadholm.

He was a cranky, myopic instructor. When it was my turn to do behind-the-wheel training, I hadn’t actually gotten behind the wheel yet with either of my parents. It was just sort of assumed (by Mr. Leadholm — and by the school) that, once a student got their Learner’s Permit, they’d immediately make a beeline for their family’s vehicle and demand their guardians teach them rules of the road.

It was utterly humiliating, sitting there while Mr. Leadholm snapped at me that my parents should have been teaching me to drive this entire time. He had a look of revulsion on his face when I couldn’t even drive around the school building in a completely-straight line (I distinctly remember us cruising past the biology classroom windows, and I could only imagine how many of my classmates must have been glancing at us and verbally raking me over the coals).

One factor in this, which wasn’t entirely Mr. Leadholm’s fault, would be the reality that our school district wasn’t at the forefront of exploring accommodations for students with disabilities. As long as you weren’t in a wheelchair — or could pass a basic cognition test — it was assumed that you could also learn how to drive in the same way “normal” kids did.

This presumptuous culture wasn’t limited to Driver’s Ed courses. Classroom exam proctoring, more Phy Ed electives, and lunch periods were other areas in which my hometown’s schools could have benefited from consultancy with members of the disability community.

But back to Mr. Leadholm…

During our classroom instruction for Driver’s Ed, he was telling us about how insurance rates are automatically higher for male drivers than they are for female drivers — regardless of one’s accident history (or lack thereof). Even from the time most people begin driving (at the age of 16).

I realize that Mr. Leadholm was just telling us the facts. However, the way in which he’d delivered the news was just so cavalier, frigid, and heartless.

“Yes, guys, you will be paying more for your car insurance than the girls will — from the very beginning.”

In my gut, this was really the moment when — buried deep within my psyche — a little voice whispered, “Nope. You’re never going to get your Driver’s License. Don’t subject yourself to becoming an integral part of that flawed system.”

A gut punch. An instinctive desire to hastily go through the motions of getting through this field instruction as a student driver…and then abandon ship!

It wasn’t that Mr. Leadholm had been responsible for creating these circumstances. Rather, he just (unknowingly) ended up being the one who would give me a push in the direction which I was probably already inevitably headed…AWAY from any inkling of a desire to be a teenager burning rubber while maneuvering a 4,000-lb. vehicle.

Parent, Can You Spare a Hamilton?

Subconsciously, the knowledge of finances was always on my mind.

It was expensive to buy a vehicle, keep up maintenance of it, regularly purchase gas for it, and make timely insurance payments to retain one’s driving privileges. At the time, I just didn’t realize how much.

In the present day, it costs upwards of $9,000 for a teen driver to meet all of these necessities. Back in 1998, that would have been equivalent to roughly $7,800.

For those not familiar with my family history: I come from a working-class household. My self-employed parents wouldn’t have been able to subsidize even a fraction of those costs. And, due to my imminent functional challenges in workplace settings, earning my own $8,000 in disposable cash simply wasn’t practical.

It didn’t matter, anyway. Even if I’d been the son of a professional anesthesiologist, flush with cash — it wouldn’t have changed the third and final obstacle standing between me and a Driver’s License…

Steering A Supernova of Nerves

For me, the experience of driving on public roads was scary as fuck!

I was terrified while driving with Mr. Leadholm. It didn’t help that he got easily irritated and exasperated with me. But, even if my parents had been in the car with me, a cacophony of fears still would have been dancing in the back of my brain…

Am I going to accidentally veer into other drivers?

Will any of those drivers abruptly ram into me?

Can I go a little faster (or slow down) without receiving a speeding ticket?

What do I do if I suddenly hit a pothole, and it rattles me?

Is the car’s engine going to spontaneously explode?

Throughout my on-the-road driving instruction with Mr. Leadholm, I can’t count the number of times he slammed down on the passenger side dual brake when I was doing something wrong. Other times, he would try to make small talk (probably to calm my visible nerves)…but the frivolous conversation only distracted me away from paying attention to my surroundings.

Again, it was a shame we were living in a time when most school districts didn’t have adequate tools for diagnosing kids with autism.

When my dad took me out driving, over the course of the next year — we were in my mom’s car WITHOUT the Driver’s Ed “instructor’s brake.” That made it even more terrifying for me. He and I had maybe two or three driving lessons before I called it quits — and my mom failed to renew my Learner’s Permit, having given up on me.

The final icing on the cake, in terms of why I was disincentivized from forcing myself to learn how to drive: one of my classmates had told me how there were only two Driver’s License certifiers at the DMV (to administer on-the-road evaluations of Driver’s License applicants). Apparently, one of them was really nice, and talked a lot about his family…but the other guy was a complete ass who outwardly treated male applicants more harshly (and cantankerously) than he did female applicants.

Nope.

I’m not rolling that dice!

I wasn’t about to subject myself to that!

Take Your Misandry Elsewhere!

Almost a decade later, I was enrolled at Cal State Northridge. My supervisor at my work-study position — Vangi, the office manger at the university’s Health Sciences departmental office — reacted incredulously when she found out I had no desire to drive.

She spoke to me as though I was a loser for not even being willing to try. When she asked me if I’d tried playing video games to prepare myself as a simulation for learning how to drive…I informed her that, no, I don’t play video games.

“Why not?!” she gaped…as though it was an absolute crime that a Millennial dude refuses to play video games in his spare time!

But Vangi — and others of the women in our office — were constantly passing judgment on me for trivial differences that they couldn’t seem to a grasp, from a “gendered” perspective.

To everyone out there who has a problem with my refusal to drive…

Who would call me a quitter…or a slacker…or a spaz!

I don’t see how it’s HARMING you (or your life) if I decline to operate a 4,000-lb. vehicle.

In fact, given how skittish and catastrophic my personality can so often be — I’m probably actually doing the world a favor by NOT putting myself in that scary situation where I could inadvertently cause massive death (or get myself killed!).

And, finally, to the women of the peanut gallery, if you just want to use me as a de facto ATM machine to conveniently keep your insurance rates low…

Sorry, ladies — this penis isn’t getting behind the steering wheel anytime soon.