Sunday, August 22, 2004

Flashback to High School

I went to the defensive driving class today. It turned out to be 5.5 hours, and not 6.5 hours (scheduled from 9 am to 3:30 pm), because he let us out early (phew). I kept myself awake by taking notes in the margins for all the things I wanted to write about for the blog. This may turn out to be a really long post... but here we go! A running list of my thoughts:

Upon Arrival at the Room:

  • I really don't want to go to this class. I can think of a much better use of my time for a Sunday morning and afternoon, and the weather is gorgeous!
  • There are 8 booklets on the tables, and 7 seats taken. Great... it's a really small class and now I have to sit in the front.
  • (Flipping through the book) There's "course agreements"?! And the agreements include active participation and no eating or drinking?? No way.
  • How long before this is over....

Pre-Break:

  • One of the course goals and objectives was "to understand how my attitude affects my driving." Instructor commented on how some of us probably didn't want to be there, but "this can be fun!" Hmm... I felt like he was talking about me, even if he wasn't looking at me. ;-)
  • He said that going to traffic court to dispute a picture from a red light camera is an admission that you were the driver of the vehicle. Immediately my legal brain kicks into gear, and is like, not necessarily if the photo doesn't show a violation, and you're just arguing based on the physical evidence!
  • Some things I learned about going the speed limit: If you drive at 100 mph, it's an automatic arrest. If you drive at twice the speed limit, they can seize your vehicle and you can be brought up on criminal charges. (See, I never cared to remember this because I don't drive at 100 mph or at twice the speed limit.) We also learned about how many mph over the speed limit you can drive on the service road and probably not be pulled over (*shh* and I'm not telling you how many).
  • I was really getting unsettled by the drawing of a stick figure in a box on the board. I get it, you drive recklessly, and you can die. But I've had enough of death imagery for the past few days, and I don't want to keep hearing about people being in pine boxes. And bones being collected. And white sheets...
  • The teacher referred to the story in the news about the New Jersey woman who ran back and forth over her husband 5 times and claimed it was an accident. He said it was premeditated. Now I didn't learn anything in crim law that I remember, but I remember enough to know that that doesn't necessarily mean it was premeditated. Many other possibilities, but I am not well-versed enough in them to say anything. (Wait until bar prep and then I'll spit some crim stuff out at you.)
  • Dammit... people are walking in at 9:15 and 9:30?! I didn't have to get here on time??
  • Anecdote: At a certain time every day outside one of the local intermediate schools, the school buses line up, put out their stop signs, and kids start boarding the buses. This woman would pass a bus, stop, look to see if anyone was coming, go, and do the same thing for each one of the 12 buses in line. They stopped her afterwards, and asked her if she knew what she did, and she did, and they asked her how many buses, and she said 12. Not only was that a hefty monetary penalty, but 5 points per bus. That's 60 points on her license for one block of driving past buses!
  • There's this woman in the class that won't stop talking. She has a comment about everything. I don't think her mouth ever closed between the talking, coffee, and donuts. Aiya. It doesn't stop!! So we had to rate compared with other drivers, how we rate our driving skills. I learned something from law school! I remember learning that 80% of people think they drive better than average (and he later read this statistic). So this woman thinks she drives like a 10 (where 10 is the best), even though she talks about how she weaves in and out of traffic. Hmm.
  • Great. He just wrote "Speed Kills" on the board. Yes, this I know, but do I need it glaring at me in green and white?
  • I am sick of hearing about the pine box!!
  • Helicopters and planes really do check your speed by radar. I guess I shouldn't have mocked the sign when we drove through Virginia on the way to Myrtle.
  • This class reminds me of why I didn't like sitting through classes in high school. I am so glad that time of my life is behind me.
  • 10 am: this elderly Asian woman walks in. She can barely walk and sort of hobbles over to her seat. Is it possible that she can really drive?!
  • We learned where the red light cameras are on Staten Island.
  • Nice... the teacher witnesses a couple having a fistfight while he was driving. Yikes. Has it really only been an hour?
  • I don't need to know that the loudmouth woman drives naked under a coat. Even if she is joking.
  • Anecdote from someone in the class: He works at the firehouse, and they didn't like one of the chiefs there because he had a BAD attitude. So they keep their keys in the firehouse, and the car on the street right outside. Right outside the firehouse is a red light camera. Apparently, the guys at the firehouse took the car and drove it through the red light 12 times waving at the camera. Oops. ;-)
  • He said we get sun glare in the car because the window is dirty. Is that true?
  • I guess this class is good training for my last year of law school and sitting through classes I don't necessarily like.
  • The firefighter has good stories.
  • 95% of police officers on SI show up for traffic court, so you don't want to go to court over a ticket.
  • There was a taxicab that was a decoy car giving out tickets, but the local paper did a story on it, zooming in on the license plate and everything, so they had to swap the cab and use a different one.
  • One important thing I did learn about is dialing *77 when an unmarked car pulls you over so you know it's not suspicious.
  • One of the questions in the book was, "What are some of the negative effects a collision could have on your life?" My written response, "Uh... death?"

Break time:

  • I ran across the street to get a bag of Combos. (Well, a snack, and it ended up being Combos.) I used to get these all the time at Krauszers in college, and now I don't know how I liked them.
  • On the way back from break, the loudmouth lady said she likes the teacher because he's "someone who gets you talking." Well, um, dear, I'm sure this isn't one of your problems.

Post-break:

  • We watched the Disney cartoon "Motor Mania," and (besides the tips on red light cameras and speed traps and *77 and the good anecdotes) this was my favorite part of the class.
  • After the cartoon, we watched this Penske-sponsored seatbelt thing. It was so sleep-inducing. I get it, seatbelts are good. I already knew that.
  • It's freezing in this room. I'm wearing jeans and bundled up in a jacket. The loudmouth lady never once said it was cold (many others did) and she was wearing tight black bike pants and a t-shirt. And going to the bathroom a lot. The bathroom was in the little classroom. For me, unless it was an emergency, it would be too weird to go to the bathroom during class when it's in the same room. What if you could hear the person in there? Eww.
  • The teacher was talking about how when you drive long distances, you should take a break and exercise to wake up. Loud lady's comment: "Driving can be relaxing." Uh... where did that come from and how is it related??
  • Anecdote: Over by one of the bridges to New Jersey, this man in a small car fell asleep, went over to the other side of the road, and got hit by an 18 wheeler. The driver of the truck was flipping out because all he could find under the truck was the rear of the car. The front of the car was gone! Our teacher had reported there, and followed the tire tracks which led to the bushes. There he found, as if cut off by a razor, the front half of the car... and the driver sound asleep at the wheel. He didn't even wake up from the impact! The teacher and a cop shook the guy to wake him up, and he said there had been no accident. They then asked him where the back of his car was. He turned around and was like, "someone stole the rear of my car!" Unbelievable... hit by a truck, car cut in half, and he's sound asleep in the car. Yikes.
  • Why are some of these people laughing at people who fall asleep right away and anywhere?? It's a medical condition, and it's called narcolepsy!
  • *yawn* I'm so tired ... yippee, we're talking about road rage. *yawn*

We got a lunch break and I got a slice of pizza.

What I learned after coming back from lunch break:

  • What people think of the terror alerts
  • About the machine that vaporizes alcohol for people who don't like the taste, and about bars offering it
  • How the loud lady doesn't understand why people could run on the treadmill and drip with sweat, and keep running

Less stories after lunch break, because we wanted to get out so we actually read through the material quickly.

Post-Lunch break:

  • Learned about where this cop sits off one of the exits on the expressway, and people average 30 miles over the speed limit. He stays there 5 days a week writing out tickets. That means people are averaging 70 on the service road!
  • Hmm. That's twice now that we've gotten the same line about leaving your kid in the car and making 7-11 a drive-thru because the kid hits the gear shift.
  • After lunch, time is going quite slowly. It's only 1:20 pm. It's never going to end. Look, the last person (the elderly Asian lady) is finally back from lunch. (We were supposed to be back at 1 pm.) She really can't walk well. I don't know how she drives.
  • If you try to touch a blind person, their seeing eye dog might bite you very hard.
  • Loud lady really isn't stopping talking... this really feels like high school.
  • Some excuses our teacher has heard when people are caught DWI in a crash: "The tree ran across the road." "The overpass wall was running across the highway." Sheesh, do people really think they'll be believed?
  • Substance questionnaire question: T/F: "Alcohol is classified as a stimulant." Elderly Asian lady says a resounding false! I don't know what was up with her after lunch, but any question we skipped on the pages she would raise her hand and ask for the answer, as if she was recording the answers for an official record or something.

There have got to be more stories. I remember more! But I've been writing this post for almost an hour, and I think it's gotten quite long. More posts on more exciting topics later. Here, the anecdotes are just interesting. Hope you've had a more exciting day than I did!


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