Be Afraid-Do It Anyway by Erna Morgan McReynolds

Overcoming a Fear of Driving

Do you remember learning to drive? Were you excited? Dying to learn to drive? To get that independence? Freedom?

Not me. I was terrified. I definitely didn’t want to go hurtling down a road in a multi thousand pound tin can at 50 or 60 or even 70 miles per hour. The « what ifs » sped through my mind faster than any race car. What if I ran over someone? Or crashed into another car? Or hit a deer? Or simply couldn’t learn to drive well enough to pass the test?

Then, to make it worse, I worked in the summers when our school offered driver ed. That meant my super anxious and volatile mother would teach me. Why not my father? A calm man and an excellent driver. He had done this once before. He taught my mother to drive. And he swore he would never teach anyone to drive after he taught Mom to drive. I still don’t know how their marriage survived her learning to drive a grey 1948 standard-shift Chevrolet.