Car of fear: A student’s perception of the dreaded driver’s test

I hate it! I just want to leave the jail cell behind this steering wheel, but I was trapped like a bison on a cliff with Indians attacking. I slowly turned the key in the ignition, and my heart jumped out of my chest when the engine started. My soul was struck by fear. I was driving in the parking lot of TOE Driving Academy.

I paused in fear. “Let’s get move’n,” the instructor said, with another student in the back seat.

I shifted into drive and gently hit the gas going forward. All I could think about was being in a car crash as I drove towards the road, busy and frightening. As I was being taken to TOE by my father, I passed by a pile up of a few cars – like a car sandwich. Everywhere I was driving I was seeing that car crash in my mind. I drove ever so slowly to avoid anything as I went to the road.

“Turn right,” the instructor said as I stopped at the end of the parking lot.

“Okay,” I said, holding my fear inside, hoping it wouldn’t escape.

I turned onto the pure black road and pushed the gas pedal. The shaking car accelerated, and I carefully steered across the black sea. I drove up to a stop light, red and high in the sky, and thought of my brakes going out and of moving head first into traffic, but luckily, that didn’t happen. I hit the brakes and slid to a stop at the white line of the intersection. My body was uneasy from the adrenaline that filled my veins.

“Go straight ahead,” the instructor directed.

The traffic stopped, and the green light turned on. I stepped on the gas and went forward with fear that something would go wrong. Later on the road, we entered a neighborhood with cars parked on each side and small children playing in their yards. My fear just punched me in the face. I slowed down and slugged my way down the road like a turtle in a field of landmines!

The instructor said to turn left, but I barely heard him as I halted at a stop sign.

I looked both ways twice and then once more, my fear subsided. There was one problem though; I had a hard time seeing over a green bush to my right. When I thought it was clear, I pressed on the gas, and then out of nowhere a van, large and gray, went zooming by. I slammed the brakes with all the force my foot could muster and stopped. My heart was beating as fast as a humming bird’s wings from the pure fright.

“That was close,” the instructor said with a slight laugh, his brake pedal slammed down too. I ended up turning again to move on a new road when the instructor told me to park at a mall lot.

I pulled in and put the car in neutral with me feeling the freedom of escaping the prison of this car. Now the other student would have to drive and deal with the fear I had.