Ode To Beginning Drivers > IDEAS & IDEALS

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  IDEAS & IDEALS

Ode To Beginning Drivers

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I feel great whenever I confront a car with a piece of paper attached to the rear window saying "Beginning Driver". For me who has just started driving and feel yet very apprehensive of it, the appearance of the more timid driver than me flatters my ego to the sky. To tell the truth, I carried the same sign on my car until last month. The reason I removed it so hastily was not so much the improved driving skill as the sense of shame. I confess now it was a cowardly act. I think of putting it back again on my car, but I have no courage to do it.

      Owing to upgrading my driving skill without it I have to experience innumerable difficulties among the veteran drivers. First of all, they get impatient in my slow starting. Often I find that the blinkers have kept working without my knowledge. Then I realize belatedly why the car that had passed by a minute ago honked so hysterically. The job of changing the lane is still an adventure for me. I start my blinkers first as I was taught in the driving school and try to slide slowly sideways, as the crabs do on the seashore, but shrink back in horror at the shrieking sound of the rushing car from behind. Attempt and failure repeat themselves several times, and my car loses speed inevitably and the car behind me urges me to speed up by honking and flashing their headlights. I become desperate. I decide not to be a gentleman. I ignore the instructions I was taught at school. I suddenly become a believer in God. I trust everything with Him and at last succeed. But I can feel hot gazes from the veteran drivers on the back of my neck, and cold sweat running down my spine. I pretend outwardly as if nothing had happened. But inwardly I sigh looking at those who can change their lanes as freely as the fish swim in the pond and envy the freedom they have attained and are enjoying.

      Then a car with the sign "Beginning Driver" comes into my view, and like Dante meeting Beatrice in Hell, I feel overjoyed and triumphant. The simple fact that the shining brand-new car should carry such an ugly-looking paper on it testifies to the desperate psychology of the man or woman sitting behind the wheel. It's simply a declaration of unconditional surrender: "I have just started driving. I cannot drive fast. Please forgive me if I stand in your way, etc." But I admire this man who can say so. I admire his honesty, modesty and bravery. Although I am not, I like honest and brave man whenever and wherever I meet him. This is one of my few merits.

     The beginning drivers' first weakness lies in the low speed. It is an untolerable affront for the veteran drivers to have a car creeping at less than 60 km/h ahead of them. It's like to find a turtle for a rabbit, or for a tiger to find a young gazelle. They cannot stand it. They speed up, outstrip it at a run and does not fail to throw a contemptuous glance on the person at the wheel.

      The other common denominator among the beginners in driving is their strong but naive law-abiding spirit. They know and think they are dead if they cross the yellow central line. They stop before the red light without fail and wait patiently until the green light comes. For the time-honoured veterans this simplicity or inflexibility is too much to stomach. They honk impatiently from behind implying that the red light is as good as the green light, if there are no pedestrians crossing the street.

      But I feel differently. I feel I have met a companion. For me who is still unaccustomed to speedy driving, the car with the beginner's sign ahead of me provides me with a good excuse as well as a refuge for my low velocity. It also awakens chivalric spirit dormant in me. I must protect the weak and help the helpless. I feel as if I had become a hen following a brood of chickens. The veteran drivers will understand that it is not I but the beginning driver ahead of me that slows the fast current of traffic. When I stop right behind him to wait for the turn of the traffic light, I send him a smile to ease his heavy mind. I would like to share a conversation with him, if possible: "Hi, friend, don't worry. Take time and drive slowly. I am not in a hurry. To be frank with you, I am also a beginner. What's the use of running fast as hell? We are not murderers, are we? Nobody is chasing us. Let's enjoy our leisure together."

      As all the adults have gone through their childhood, so all the veteran drivers in the world must have gone through the stage of being a beginner. But to our great regret, as the adults forget their childhood experience so easily and sometimes completely, so does the beginning drivers. That is the eternal tragedy. If we could keep the childhood innocence and honesty at a corner of our mind and remember the wrongs and injustices committed by the adults in the eyes of children, the world would become much better than it is. One who has lost his childhood completely is not only unhappy person. He is also a very dangerous one.

      A car is a little bit expensive toy for the adults. With a car they return to their childhood again. Their affection for and devotion to this toy is remarkable. They wash and shine it. They look into the underparts of the car everyday and do not hesitate to creep into under it on their back. They grumble and worry if they hear something funny sound from it, do not allow anyone to touch it, and make much ado about a scratch made on the body of the car, as if the end of the world had come. Seeing all these, children nod their head in sympathy. With his new car a husband goes his wife's errands to the supermarket hundred times a day. It gives fun as well as life to them, makes them drink less, go to bed early and rise early. It makes them a good boy.

      But the sad fate of all the toys, including the car, lies in their short life. For a certain period of time a beginning driver is not only in deep love with the car, but also fully determined to master all the skills in driving, and also full of mission to correct all the deplorable driving habits and customs of our people, and make himself an exemplary driver in our country. But with the flow of time and with the improvement of the driving skill this noble and ardent desire and purpose begin to lose the great impetus, and soon he finds himself in repeating what the veteran drivers had done to him, and sometimes, without regret or remorse he outdoes or outwits them in flouting the traffic regulations. The sign "Beginning Driver" is not a shameful thing to remove in haste, but an ideal attitude of all the drivers to keep and cherish as long as we drive a car.
                                                                                                        (April 25, 2001)

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