Driving me crazy !




It is said that driving a car is very easy in the US. May be it is, but for someone like me who has spend almost 10-12 years driving in India , no let me correct driving in Pune it is a Herculean task . I was never a great driver in Pune either but I followed all the rules. Don’t be surprised there are some unwritten rules in Pune which everyone has to follow.
  • For eg : At an intersection, a car can come from any direction so you have to be vigilant  
  •  People, especially those huge trucks will change lanes without an indicator so you need to have a sixth sense , understand the psychology of the driver and then drive accordingly.   
  • Even on a 10 ft road people will drive Innovas or Scorpios with no space left for other cars. It is your skill to pass through that narrow lane without scratching the big vehicle.
  •  At a red signal , people may or may not stop depending on the urgency with which they have to reach somewhere, so if you are standing at a red signal and the car behind you honks , you have to be patient enough to ignore him/her.
We moved to St Louis, Missouri a few months back. With lack of public transport I soon realised that driving a car was not an option but a necessity. My husband was in US for a long time before marriage and he used to drive a car regularly so unfortunately he was my tutor. Those who are married for more than 3-4 years will know how much you hate it when your husband/wife is right about something. The pure joy in proving your husband/wife wrong is priceless. But while relearning how to drive my husband got the opportunity to point out my mistakes and that irritated me. 
I still don’t get it why Americans have a system of right hand driving. Just to do the opposite of what Europeans do I think. It is like when we were teens and our parents told us to do something and we did exactly opposite of that. I started with all the common mistakes like driving on the left side of the road, starting the wiper when I had to show an indicator for a turn, honking quite frequently and considering it is my right of way come what may. “ If you honk at someone unnecessarily it is considered rude/insulting for that person” my husband said. Really? by this rule, back in India I must have insulted so many people ! . My one hand used to be on the steering and other hand on the horn.

 My next difficulty was dealing with the high speeds.  For a very long time I could not digest the fact that you can get a ticket for slow driving. I always thought slow driving was safe. In Pune there is so much traffic that even if you want to, you just cannot exceed a certain speed limit. You drive in the second and third gear. The fifth gear is like that pretty dress on the thin mannequin which you can never wear. Driving on the interstate was a challenge. Given my prior experience I always used to think that some car with such a high speed will change the lane suddenly and bump into me. Driving fast was difficult for me, changing lanes was even more difficult. It happened a few times that I did not change the lane earlier and then had to take some random exit because I happened to be in the exit lane. 
The signage system in US is great but it better be. All the streets look identical. You just can’t recognise which road you are on. Everywhere there will be a Walmart, Target, Subway, Mcd, Macy’s and so on.  
After driving here I realised the importance of all the 3 mirrors in a car. I have actually got into the habit of adjusting the mirrors. I remember in Pune , the left hand side mirror of my car was broken and it did not make any difference. I was so used to driving without looking in the mirrors. 
Next comes the stage of obtaining a licence. I had to prepare for the written exam. After going through the manual I thought ‘there must be similar rules in India but none of us have read it’ . I had got my car driving licence through a driving school. So even before I gave the test, my licence was ready. I was super happy at that time, I was 18 back then but now I realise how dangerous it was to give away licences like that. 
After almost 3-4 months of great effort, I am in a much better position to drive here in the US. To learn something is not very difficult but to unlearn and then learn is very tough.
  




 

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