And here I was worried that I will not have anything interesting to blog about.
I turned 18 this year. After my exams got over I had a few things in mind and driving was definitely one of them. So after sitting on it for 20 days, when I realised my dad was not going to teach me and neither was he going to make me join a class, I did a very impulsive thing. I had found contact numbers of all these driving schools and had even talked to one of the people beforehand and my friend had also recommended him. So I called him up and decided to finalise on the driving classes pretty much on my own. It turned out to be a very bad decision as after spending 15 days learning 'the art of driving', I rammed my car into another car, damaging a signpost on the way.
Usually, I practise with my dad, 5:30 in the morning. But I've no idea what happened and I was out for a ride with my mom at 10 AM. What I did was not even ride. It was plain 'cause an accident'.
The Motor Driving School I learnt from, taught me reversing on the last day for just five minutes. I should have known then that I just should NOT attempt reversing in my society which is flanked by cars on each side of the road.
I did it anyways.
On my side of the road there was a Mother Dairy and a bread shop with people buying stuff on an absurdly humid but otherwise perfectly normal Delhi day. I took the car keys from mom, sat on the driver's seat, turned on the ignition with absolutely no idea what was about to happen in the next thirty seconds. It was an okayish width lane with a signpost on the right and lines of cars on both sides. When I was getting into the car, I remember there was significant space between the car and the sign. I changed the gear to reverse and released my foot from the clutch and slightly pressed the accelerator while also turning the steering. Apparently, it was not as slightly as it seemed to me and the car went backwards really fast. My steering was also terrible as I did not expect it to be so sudden. Had I just reversed in a straight path, the car wouldn't have hit the sign at least. But, obviously I didn't, so it swerved to the right and the sign banged onto the car, causing a huge dent to surface on the right side and then the rest of the car just went sliding past the sign, causing it to bend and imparting a large scratch on the right headlights all the way up to the middle of the car. Ironically enough, it was a 'DRIVE SLOWLY' sign.
Oh, wait, but it didn't end there. After I was done damaging the right side of the car, the steering wheel had completely turned the car at a right angle and the car was headed towards the left side of the road, just in reverse direction. And obviously I panicked, so the car accelerated even more and this time, it rammed straight into another car which was stationary, creating a dent on both cars.
Just imagine this taking place within ten seconds and the whole scenario should play perfectly in your head. Between this rash behavior on my part my mom just kept saying, 'What are you doing! Brake, now! Brake! Stop!'.
Sadly, I understood the brake part after almost knocking down a sign and damaging my car and another car. It was just so quick, I had no time to react. Just too much happened all at once.
After the accident, all the people who were buying and selling in front of the scene that day just stopped everything to look at me. They were giving me the most horrible stares. And not a single person came up to check on us or help us out with the car. I was obviously dreading having to talk to mom as I had wrecked her just six month old car and my dad had warned me about hitting cars in the society. We went to the owner of the other car to report about the damages which was not much. Our car had sustained more, both, front and back. I was feeling terrible, obviously and didn't talk much. I am in general a very responsible person and don't break stuff even at home, wrecking a car was something I didn't even remotely have in mind. Mom did try to cheer me up. She went today to get the dents fixed and the car is okay now. So I am happy.
I obviously won't stop practising because I screwed up this time. It's weird because I am finding this really amusing now. I banged into another car, just like they show in movies, when you keep knocking down everything on the road. This shows just how fickle some emotions are and what you dread one day may be really funny the next day. I'm saving that for another post maybe. It just happened to me for the first time, so I had to share. This doesn't mean you should never touch a car again. You don't feel that bad later on and everything is always a learning experience.
I turned 18 this year. After my exams got over I had a few things in mind and driving was definitely one of them. So after sitting on it for 20 days, when I realised my dad was not going to teach me and neither was he going to make me join a class, I did a very impulsive thing. I had found contact numbers of all these driving schools and had even talked to one of the people beforehand and my friend had also recommended him. So I called him up and decided to finalise on the driving classes pretty much on my own. It turned out to be a very bad decision as after spending 15 days learning 'the art of driving', I rammed my car into another car, damaging a signpost on the way.
Usually, I practise with my dad, 5:30 in the morning. But I've no idea what happened and I was out for a ride with my mom at 10 AM. What I did was not even ride. It was plain 'cause an accident'.
The Motor Driving School I learnt from, taught me reversing on the last day for just five minutes. I should have known then that I just should NOT attempt reversing in my society which is flanked by cars on each side of the road.
I did it anyways.
On my side of the road there was a Mother Dairy and a bread shop with people buying stuff on an absurdly humid but otherwise perfectly normal Delhi day. I took the car keys from mom, sat on the driver's seat, turned on the ignition with absolutely no idea what was about to happen in the next thirty seconds. It was an okayish width lane with a signpost on the right and lines of cars on both sides. When I was getting into the car, I remember there was significant space between the car and the sign. I changed the gear to reverse and released my foot from the clutch and slightly pressed the accelerator while also turning the steering. Apparently, it was not as slightly as it seemed to me and the car went backwards really fast. My steering was also terrible as I did not expect it to be so sudden. Had I just reversed in a straight path, the car wouldn't have hit the sign at least. But, obviously I didn't, so it swerved to the right and the sign banged onto the car, causing a huge dent to surface on the right side and then the rest of the car just went sliding past the sign, causing it to bend and imparting a large scratch on the right headlights all the way up to the middle of the car. Ironically enough, it was a 'DRIVE SLOWLY' sign.
Oh, wait, but it didn't end there. After I was done damaging the right side of the car, the steering wheel had completely turned the car at a right angle and the car was headed towards the left side of the road, just in reverse direction. And obviously I panicked, so the car accelerated even more and this time, it rammed straight into another car which was stationary, creating a dent on both cars.
Just imagine this taking place within ten seconds and the whole scenario should play perfectly in your head. Between this rash behavior on my part my mom just kept saying, 'What are you doing! Brake, now! Brake! Stop!'.
Sadly, I understood the brake part after almost knocking down a sign and damaging my car and another car. It was just so quick, I had no time to react. Just too much happened all at once.
After the accident, all the people who were buying and selling in front of the scene that day just stopped everything to look at me. They were giving me the most horrible stares. And not a single person came up to check on us or help us out with the car. I was obviously dreading having to talk to mom as I had wrecked her just six month old car and my dad had warned me about hitting cars in the society. We went to the owner of the other car to report about the damages which was not much. Our car had sustained more, both, front and back. I was feeling terrible, obviously and didn't talk much. I am in general a very responsible person and don't break stuff even at home, wrecking a car was something I didn't even remotely have in mind. Mom did try to cheer me up. She went today to get the dents fixed and the car is okay now. So I am happy.
I obviously won't stop practising because I screwed up this time. It's weird because I am finding this really amusing now. I banged into another car, just like they show in movies, when you keep knocking down everything on the road. This shows just how fickle some emotions are and what you dread one day may be really funny the next day. I'm saving that for another post maybe. It just happened to me for the first time, so I had to share. This doesn't mean you should never touch a car again. You don't feel that bad later on and everything is always a learning experience.
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