My Hopeless Situation Led Me on a Strange Journey: I Learned to Drive by Watching YouTube Videos.
I felt a hand on my left shoulder when I heard a raspy voice, “This is the final stop young man.” I opened my eyes hurriedly, I had overslept and missed my stop. A tall chubby man with black slacks, a poorly fitted white shirt, and eyebrows raised to his forehead was standing next to me. He was the bus driver. I looked around, only to realize I was the only passenger left. I got off quickly and hopped on another bus that was heading back to my stop.
It was a little after 2 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon when the incident had happened. After completing my morning college classes I was heading to work, where I would be standing for over 9 hours. I did not own a car then, so the public bus in Houston was the only way for me to get around. Even the local bus would drop me about a mile west from my work. That meant I always had a 15 minutes walk after every bus ride. After my shift, I usually took a cab back home. It was not a budget-friendly option for a student but I had no other choice. There was even a day where I stayed all night outside, in the cold, waiting for a cab to show up.
I was a full-time student who had a full-time job. Most nights by the time I reached my apartment, it would already be 1 a.m. in the morning. I frequently had to stay up another couple of hours to complete my dreaded but mandatory college assignments. I was only sleeping for four and half hours each night. The college, my job, and everything in between were wearing me down. Therefore, sleeping on the public bus on the way to work was not a one-time mistake. It was a ritual, an essential one actually, that was keeping me from going insane.
I desperately needed a car and I had been saving for it too. Between commuting to work and home, it would save me at least two hours each day. Public transportation took forever to get anywhere. For a guy who had been sleeping on the bus for 20 minutes just to remain sane, two hours meant a lot. Therefore, once I saved enough money for a down payment, I went to an old car lot with an acquaintance and bought a gold Toyota Corolla. He dropped the car in the parking lot of my apartment and gave me the keys. I finally purchased a car, which was about to untangle my jumbled life, but my problem had just begun. I did not know how to drive it.
After I bought the car, I barely had enough money in my bank account to pay the rent. I was ashamed when I had to ask my parents for money. “I just bought a car. I am broke. Could you please send me a couple of grand?” I asked my mom on the phone. She wired the money but not before reminding me that it was the last time, and it’s time for me to step up as the head of my family.
My family never owned a car. Owning a vehicle is still not a real purchase a lot of Nepalese families can afford. Therefore, I did not know how to drive when I came to The U.S.A. To be completely honest, I had never been in a driver’s seat before buying my own car. I had no idea how anything inside a car works.
After looking into my bank account and talking to my family, paying for a driving lesson was out of the question. First, I was penniless. Second, I did not have time for lessons. I lived with a friend who knew how to drive but I felt bad imposing on him since he was also a student with a full-time job. I could no longer bear sleeping on the bus and walking for miles each day either. Therefore, I had to learn how to drive on my own.
A couple of days after talking to my parents, I was doing my college assignments online. Like most college students, I was looking for answers on the internet. Unexpectedly, I typed “How to drive a car” on a new tab. For some reason, probably because of constant sleep deprivation and exhaustion, learning how to drive from the Internet made sense. Google spewed thousands of articles, to say the least, along with a few video suggestions on YouTube. I clicked on the first link. It was a video introduction to all the parts of a car. Thus, my driving lessons began.
Was the method unconventional? Yes, it was but I had to learn somehow. At a time when I was hopeless on where I should start, YouTube was a godsend to my life. In the next few days, I watched, what felt like hundreds of videos, on how to drive a car. I googled every single doubt I had about holding a steering wheel, pressing brakes and accelerator, and signalling.
As a practice, I grabbed a 12-inch ceramic white and blue plate from my kitchen and pretended it to be a steering wheel. I placed my college bag on the floor underneath my right foot posing it as the pedals of my car. I practiced everything from how to drive with 10 and 2 hand placement to how much pressure I should put on each pedal. I drove on straight imaginary roads to the most difficult make-believe highways using the Internet as my coach. I took my makeshift car on fictional roads for two days before finally bringing up the courage to sit in the driver’s seat of my real car.
The first weekend after buying a Corolla, I managed to reverse it. I almost fainted with anxiety when the car slowly went backward. I froze and braked immediately. The car was longer than I had imagined and the steering wheel was wider than the ceramic plate I practiced with. I could not turn my head at all. So, looking into the side mirrors was out of the question. Still, I continued after a few deep breaths. Somehow, I managed to take my car around the parking lot. After hundreds of circles around the apartment, I got a grasp on how to steer the car, how to use pedals and how to use side mirrors.
However, I wanted to drive my car to school, work, and everywhere in between. Therefore, I had to take my car on the road. So, on the third practice day, I took my car out at 1 a.m. Despite having an empty street to myself, I was nervous. It felt like I was having a heart attack. I had a sweaty palm and could not hold onto the steering wheel tight enough. I was driving at 30 miles per hour on a 45 miles per hour road. The speed was too much for me, it was nauseating. When I parked the car back in my apartment, I realized that I had done it: I learned how to drive by watching YouTube videos.
For the first time in months, I was excited about life. I was closer to my dream of not having to wait for an unreliable metro. “A little more practice and I can just drive to work. I don’t have to sleep on the bus” I remember telling myself on one of my last bus rides. And, that’s exactly what happened. A few practice sessions later, I started taking my car to school and college without using freeways.
Learning how to drive using the Internet was not without problems. Once, I slammed my car on an electric box while trying to park because I thought I was pressing the brake when instead I was pressing the accelerator pedal. It shattered my back bumper. I never fixed it. I kept it, until the day I sold my car, as a reminder that I can learn anything.
Also, the first time I took my car out on the freeway, I could not take my exit because I was too scared to change lanes. I kept going for another 5 miles before finally making a U-turn. Once, it started raining on my way to work, that’s when I realized I had forgotten what I learned about wipers. “Do my wipers work?” I mumbled with fear. Fortunately, my car was equipped with a functioning pair and it did not take me long to turn it on.
Not just these issues, I also failed my driver’s license trial twice. If I did not pass the trial one more time, I would need to take the computer test and repeat the whole process all over again. I barely had time for the test I was failing repeatedly. The first time, I touched the curb. The lady sitting on the passenger side immediately failed me. The second time, I failed to act properly on a four-way stop. Failing twice was upsetting. I questioned if I missed out on some important lessons by not paying for a driver’s lesson. I wondered if I was a good learner. Anyhow, the third time was the charm. Though I made some mistakes, the test went pretty smoothly. I passed.
Many of my friends have asked me if the experience was scary, or if I thought about dying while learning. Those thoughts never crossed my mind. Sure, I was terrified sometimes but I never had the time to stop and process my emotions. I never thought through if it was a good idea to learn from the internet. It was risky at times, but I was blinded by hunger to move forward. Having said that, I do acknowledge that I got lucky to some extent — that I did not have any accidents.
There was a time when I doubted if I could ever do it, especially when I repeatedly failed to comfortably check over my shoulder for blind spots while driving. To lessen my self-doubt, I came up with a mantra, “If millions of people can drive without a problem, so can I.” I still tell myself that when trying to learn something new. Recently, I learned how to put together a website for my portfolio images. This is the same mantra that kept me going. I can learn anything I sincerely want is the attitude I still carry around. I tell everyone that you can learn anything on the internet, and I truly mean it.
Within a couple of months of getting my license, I could comfortably drive and took my first road trip to Waco, Texas. It has been more than a decade since I last slept on the public bus. In some ways, I feel strangely grateful that my situation was desperate because I would have never understood that I can teach myself anything. My wretched situation taught me that it’s worth learning new skills in life — life is worth exploring.
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