{"id":898,"date":"2009-03-20T23:48:08","date_gmt":"2009-03-20T21:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/?p=898"},"modified":"2009-12-29T00:17:06","modified_gmt":"2009-12-28T22:17:06","slug":"drive-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/2009\/03\/drive-in\/","title":{"rendered":"Drive-in"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>My son is now a driver.<\/p>\n

Those six words are probably as significant, if not more – at least to him – than becoming a bar mitzvah. When you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re 13, you get counted in a minyan but other than that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just another day in 7th grade.<\/p>\n

But 17\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the year you transcend being a mere passenger to taking command of a 3,000 pound metal death machine and hurtling it through \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and against – the most dangerous waters in the world: the Israeli highway.<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m so proud.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, Amir is very good behind the wheel. He makes complete stops, always signals, and keeps to the speed limit \u00e2\u20ac\u201c things that, after more than 30 years on the road, I am sometimes less pedantic about.<\/p>\n

He ought to. After 49 lessons, Amir is surely ready for anything the streets of Jerusalem throw at him.<\/p>\n

I of course am a nervous Nelly in the car with him, though I try my best not to show it. When I jerk my head back and forth, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not checking the intersection for oncoming cars. No, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m just stretching my neck a bit, keeping it limber.<\/p>\n

Learning to drive in Israel is very different than back in the old country. The most obvious: the driving age is 17, not 16. And, unlike in California where I grew up, you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get a learner\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s permit before you take the test. You can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even start lessons until you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re of age.<\/p>\n

And they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re expensive too. For those 49 50-minute lessons, we paid NIS 90 (about $22) each. The test is nearly $100 and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pretty much unheard of for a student to pass on the first time. I heard of at least one Israeli who had to take that darn exam 11 times before getting her license (I would have given up on 8 and resigned myself to taking the bus).<\/p>\n

Fortunately, new immigrant drivers who already have a license from a Western country only have to take one lesson before the test and don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need to pass a written theory exam. Jody and I both passed the first time through.<\/p>\n

Israeli testers are a tough bunch. You fail if you make just a single mistake. Amir pulled out too far on his first go and the examiner tapped the brakes. Buzz\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re out.<\/p>\n

The whole process has made me more tolerant of the tens of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153learner\u00e2\u20ac\u009d cars that prowl our southern Jerusalem neighborhood, slowing down the already clogged streets and generally driving me to distraction.<\/p>\n

When I was 15, we had lessons in school. They were free. And we spent half our time in a simulator. This was before video games were widespread, so getting to play what was essentially an educational arcade video game was a real treat.<\/p>\n

I nevertheless only received a B+ in driver\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ed. It dragged down my entire GPA and ruined my chances of being selected as class \u00e2\u20ac\u0153brain\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for the high school yearbook. Maybe that was a good thing.<\/p>\n

A couple of weeks after getting my license, I scraped into a poll at the entrance to a local drive-in movie theater (does anyone remember those?), forever blighting our nearly new Dodge Custom Coronet. Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t worry, though, you can get in the car with me. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m quite proficient these days. Really.<\/p>\n

Once you get your license here, you can only drive with an adult for the first three months. So we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re taking every opportunity to let Amir get behind the wheel for the experience.<\/p>\n

But having a teenager driver, well, it drives up the insurance significantly. Like, $1,500 a year on top of the $900 we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re already paying for just Jody and me. And mind you, we have a 14-year-old vehicle already, so we barely even pay beyond the mandatory liability coverage.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, the insurance company has a special deal. If your child drives no more than 60 hours a year (approximately 5 hours a month \u00e2\u20ac\u201c perfect for army age kids who are only home every other weekend), the price drops to just $250 a year.<\/p>\n

How do they track how many hours – the honor system maybe? No way. This is hi-tech Israel. Every time Amir gets in the car, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have to send a text message to a special number. When he gets out, he SMS\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s again. Bizarre, but I guess it works.<\/p>\n

In the back of our car there now hangs on the window a yellow \u00e2\u20ac\u0153New Driver\u00e2\u20ac\u009d sign. Apparently it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mandatory. I had thought it was meant to torture the average impatient Israeli by making it harder to honk and scream if they know it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a newbie.<\/p>\n

I admit, I sometimes became one of those ugly Israelis. But no more. After all, it could very well be my own son in one of those cars.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My son is now a driver. Those six words are probably as significant, if not more – at least to him – than becoming a bar mitzvah. When you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re 13, you get counted in a minyan but other than that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just another day in 7th grade. But 17\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the year you transcend being a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=898"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":928,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898\/revisions\/928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}