WWPD Guides: OMG DRIVERS LICENSE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! edition

Prepare yourselves, WWPD readers, for what shall be the most momentous announcement of WWPD history: On this very day, I went and got a driver's license. It actually happened. After two failed road tests in Red Hook, after actually getting a car and practicing since June, after putting my husband through the unique agony that is teaching a loved one how to drive, after panicking just about continuously from the time I set up this road test, the day finally came, and I managed to not massively screw anything up. Yes, my foot was quivering on the brake, and yes, my shirt, if not the entirety of Mercer County, was drenched in sweat. But it's done! I'm so happy to never, ever, ever parallel park again. If this means not driving to Philadelphia, so be it.

So, now that that's out of the way, the official WWPD guide to getting a driver's license as an ancient person:

-The biggest obstacle to this ended up being my so-so proof of address (which turned out to be OK, long story), so I recommend holding onto recent first-class mail, in your current name, if you've changed it. Don't get tripped up by something you can totally control.

-Use lessons strategically. Learning to drive with lessons alone is theoretically possible, but it helps tremendously to get a feel for just basic maneuvering. To pay for this with lessons would get expensive rather quickly. But just practicing isn't ideal, either - you want, at the very least, to take a lesson right before the test. That way, someone who knows the local DMV gives you whichever tips, plus you've gotten over the most extreme nerves an hour or so before the test itself. The only downside is, the car will be unfamiliar. But if they're not too different (i.e. you hadn't been driving something closer to a truck), you'll be fine. Also useful: take a lesson where your instructor tells you you're ready, then practice for several months more, and only then take the test.

-Practice with someone who got a license somewhere with a much more difficult test than you're going to take. It helps to find a Belgian - their test is on normal roads, and using a manual. What you want to do, as with any test, is overshoot the mark in preparation. (I think my husband should be able to put 'taught badly-coordinated native-New-Yorker wife how to drive' on his CV. I think this counts as astrophysics.)

-With parallel parking, you will spend a lot of time perfecting the maneuver, but what you really need to know is how to correct for having entered the spot incorrectly. On my test, the parallel parking came immediately after a right turn, so there was no time to straighten out the car. I could tell how wrong the angle was, but figured once I was in the spot, using some combination of lesson-techniques and Belgian-driving ones, I'd get it in there. Which I did, but with a hubcap touching the curb. Which, with more time, I'd have corrected, but DMV examiners need to get on with the day.

-Pray for a lenient examiner. And I think this falls into Dan Savage's category of things atheists might make an exception and pray for.

-Re: psychology: one thing that can help or hurt, depending, is to remind yourself that everyone has taken this test and passed. This isn't like getting into college or grad school, or like getting any job whatsoever. This is open admissions, as it were. Remind yourself that you're not special, not uniquely incapable of doing this basic thing that everybody does. Unless you do have a condition that prevents you from driving safely, in which case don't drive. But if you're just run-of-the-mill clumsy, remember that this skill isn't the same as being good at sports or ballet. Don't assume that mediocre spacial reasoning, or a poor performance in high school physics, disqualifies you from the basic way Americans and many others get around.