I Can't Drive 55

My teenage son says I have a "road dial."

From what I gather, it's the volume of rage I have during a driving commute. My freedom of expression has increased concurrently with his age; Gabe and I are both at 15 these days.

My self-assessment is that I'm a good driver. My parents both drove professionally, I had several weeks of driver's ed back when the local schools actually taught it, and none of the wrecks in which I've been involved were my fault.

Every other driver? An idiot.

I am determined that Gabe is going to be a good driver. Farm kids tend to learn early on lawn mowers and tractors, so I'm sure his skill will be acceptable. It's his awareness of other drivers, his commitment to gracious merging, and his willingness to get out of the way of faster travelers that will need to be actualized.

This is not going to happen in 24 hours of classroom instruction and eight hours with a certified driving instructor, which happen to be Ohio's minimum education requirements before testing for a driver's license.

It's not going to happen with him driving me around while he has his learner's permit, either. I'm seven months pregnant and not about to entrust his younger brother's yet-to-be life to a novice driver, or burden Gabe with any guilt of injuring his mother. Nor would it be good for Gabe to have a pierced eardrum from his control-freak mother screaming, "Don't you know what a turn signal is!?"

My only recourse now, since someone else will have to cowboy up and supervise his actual driving practice, is to nag him continually while I am driving and he is a passenger.

"Be careful in this intersection. It's hard to see oncoming traffic."

"Do you see what that car just did, cutting off that semi truck? Don't you ever do that."

"Four-way stops are not rocket science. Go when it's your turn. The person on the right has the right of way. That's why it's called 'right.'"

Gabe replies nearly every time with, "I know, I know." This usually gets me snapping along the lines of, "Well, what I know is that I'm your mother and it's my job to tell you these things." He's usually quiet again for a few miles.

I chatter on.

"If I ever catch you racing down residential streets where kids walk home from school and dogs can dart out of yards, I'll ground you until you have gray hair in your ears."