November 15, 2024
10:10 am
Dear Poppy, Rory, Julianna,
Time marches on. We’re all getting older. At some point Landon will join this conversation, too.
I have some more driving advice for you. I hope it is helpful.
Let’s say you want to turn left onto a two way fast highway where there’s a lot of traffic (and there’s no stop light at the intersection.)
One has to be patient. And “not in a hurry”, of course. You look left to see when the traffic is clear. When it is about to be clear you look right.
(Note that you can’t tell how fast a car is going at a glance. You need two glances. You need a “delta T” Δ t [ to state it mathematically ] – a difference of time. With one glance you can determine a car’s position but not its velocity.)
If the traffic is heavy and intense it is often better and safer and easier to turn right and then make a U-turn. This takes more time but we’re not in a hurry, right? (It may even be faster.)
Even turning right can be a little tricky. You look to the left to make sure the traffic is clear. Then you look right to check for pedestrians and then you just turn, yes? Well, not exactly. It’s important to look left again as you are turning. In the short time you were checking for pedestrians a car on the left may have appeared. It’s tricky. You have to pay attention!
Rory, I heard that you got your license recently. Yay! And that you made your first solo drive successfully. Way to go! 👍 Congratulations, too, to your parents who helped you. A Lot. Rory – I hope you’re still open to suggestions from your passengers. Remember that you do have their lives in your hands.
My driving license expired recently and since I am over 70 (75, actually) I had to go to the DMV and take the written test. I carefully studied the California Driver Handbook in detail. There’s a LOT in that book. So many different lane markings: 6 in all! single/double, solid/broken, yellow/white. What do they all mean? 😊 Thankfully, I did pass the test. I got some questions wrong – like how far should the driver’s chest be from the airbag in the steering wheel? 8", 10", or 12"? I had no idea. Am I supposed to have a ruler in the car to check? I think they include questions like these so it’s unlikely that we would ace the test. And to keep us humble and open to learning more.
For fun, I include a California Driver’s Handbook in Arabic (for Poppy) or Hindi (for Rory and Julianna). One does not need to be fluent in English to get a license.
On page ii in the English handbook I see these 2 things:
In your life you will likely get a ticket - either a parking ticket or a “moving violation”. Coincidentally, I got a parking ticket this morning! I stayed more than 2 hours in a 2 hour lot. I was enjoying writing this letter and lost track of time. The ticket cost $50. I went directly to the police station, paid it, and thanked them for the lesson.
Speaking of parking here’s another little piece of advice: Rather than parking as close as possible to where you are going, park in the furthest reaches of the lot. The benefits are:
Let’s find a time for me to come visit you. I’d like to ride with you to experience your driving in person. And you could try driving my car! It’s fun to see how quickly you can adapt to a different car. In my recent travels I rented these cars via turo.com:
Electric:
There is a lot of hullabaloo about Self Driving Cars. I enjoy driving. Why would I choose to let the robot have all the fun? (Coincidentally, I wrote this paragraph while eating in a Chinese restaurant and the fortune in the fortune cookie had an advertisement for a WAYMO self driving car.)
That’s all for now,
Love,
guJon
P.S. Tanya read this letter and said it was very messy and should be rewritten clearly. I won’t do that because it would remove the charm of my handwriting and also because there is an unnaturally clean version at logicalpoetry.com/driving.