Sometimes, someone writes something that captures the essence of a problem in a few well-chosen words.
In February, long-time New Yorker magazine writer and New York City resident Adam Gopnik published an article “The Driver’s Seat: What we learn when we learn to drive” (New Yorker, Feb 2, 2015). Growing up and living in New York, Gopnik confesses, he did not get his driver’s license when he was a teen because a car would have been a burden on his family, and then in his adult life in the City, he didn’t need one. But when his 20-year-old son decided to get his license, Adam decided it was time for him to do so. So he and his son embarked on driver education together.
I highly recommend the whole article, linked below, but one paragraph caught my eye as brilliantly describing why we simultaneously love and hate driving. Gopnik said:
Driving, I realized, isn’t really difficult; it’s just extremely dangerous. You hit the gas and turn the wheel, and there you are—in possession of a two-ton weapon capable of being pointed at anything you like, at any speed you can go at, just by pressing a pedal a little bit harder. The poor people in the crosswalk—the guy in the tank top striding indifferently forward; the mother yanking at her child’s hand—had no idea of the danger they were in with me behind the wheel! I had no idea of the danger I am in doing the same thing, day after day. Cars are terrifying, and cars are normality itself.
Exactly! “Not really difficult, but extremely dangerous.” The driving dilemma, nailed.
And Gopnik’s words perfectly describe the challenge for parents of teen drivers. We focus on the fact that making a vehicle move is not hard, but we downplay or outright forget all of the complicated things that drivers have to do and the dangers of being on the road. Putting a car through its mechanical paces is easy, even fun, but the slightest error can injure and kill people. Our culture so glorifies the maneuvering part that we blind ourselves to the risks, especially when we are teaching teens to drive.
Thank you, Adam Gopnik, for your words of wisdom.
