TEEN DRIVER IN THE HOUSE


It seems like only yesterday that my son was just learning to walk, now he is embarking on a new venture...driving. He called me at work all excited to tell me that he had passed the learners permit test. Man I was so happy for him but a little sad for his mother and I. Things like this make you wonder where all that time goes so fast.
When I got home he and his mother were off to a teen meeting so this would be the first time for me to see him drive away with his legal permit. Are we worried about him driving ? Not really, least ways speaking for myself. He was born with plenty of problems and from day one we had to take him for therapy each and every week. My wife took him most of the time and she would show me what we had to do every night, it wasn't easy on us to do it but we did. Several surgeries and countless hours of therapy over many years brought him along well. So well in fact that most people don't even know he has any problems at all. Its amazing that he was ever able to walk at all or turn a page in a book but he can.
When he was so little with casts on he got to watch plenty of racing because I was into it. Being that we had friends in the racing game also, our son got to see that part to from the inside out as it were. Another benefit, we didn't think of it that way then, was all the contact he had with medical personal and all the way over to racing people. Needless to say, he began to develop a mind that was years ahead of his age plus, a great interest in cars and racing. He jumped right into video racing games that I had played while he watched. A few months of him playing made it hard for me to beat him, seriously, he was a dang natural at it. As soon as we could, because he could not walk well, we got him one of those electric Big Foot trucks. He drove the mess outta that thing. Then we got him into go karts. His first few outings were slow but he caught on and he only knew two speeds after that. Full throttle all the way around the track and stop. There was experience and ability learned from driving those carts and from his mentors/car owners from local tracks and Hooters cup drivers.
So am I worried about his young age of being behind the wheel on our streets? Not really. His go-cart years taught him tons of real life lessons about handling, braking, steering, gauging speed, and how to handle a car in a skid etc. But what about auto insurance for the bump up that's bound to happen? We've already decided when he gets his own car he'll be responsible for his own insurance as well on a separate policy. If by chance he gets a ticket it will be on his insurance. We'll most probably help him out some with it but it will be his policy.
I'm proud of our son and I know that he can handle situations in life that a lot of teens are just now getting knowledge of. In my gut I know that his years of driving those go-carts is already paying off. Thing is now, there are no stands on the streets to cheer him on from.