I'm Nervous, guyz

[Fathom Zero]

about getting my driver's license. :x

[Colonel Flagg]

Have you never taken driver's ed?

[Fathom Zero]

No.

I'm turr-fied of drivin'. I think it's because I don't want to be responsible for the ton/s of metal hurtling down a road. And I've been in a lot of horrible accidents.

[10,000 Volt Ghost]

I took my test 4 times before getting my license. Just practice a lot before hand. Eventully learn to drive standard because it is better.

[The Leader]

I'm the same way about driving. I just got used to it over time and decided that everyone's got to die someday so fuck it and fuck everyone else if I accidentally ram them.

I still don't have my license. :(

[10,000 Volt Ghost]

Also, prepare to gain weight.

[Dimnos]

Its not so bad. Do you actually have to take a driving test or just a written one?

[Fathom Zero]

Well, in Texas where I'm getting the thing, there's a written test, an eye test, and then you have to demonstrate the ability to the tune of 70% capacity, which explains why Texans can't fucking drive.

[Dimnos]

If your doing it here your good bro. The written is easy. :lol

[Fathom Zero]

Yeah, I know most shit already. But they also expect you to know stuff like "What percent of deaths relating to automobile accidents can be prevented by simply using a seatbelt?"

Fucking stupid. And oh yeah, cool story - my uncle would've died when he was a kid if was wearing a seatbelt. A semi broadsided him and cut the car into two bits, pulling the seat out from behind and under him.

[Colonel Flagg]

The answer to that question is "all of them, with the one exception of when the car goes over the cliff, and you're all like "oh no, what have I done" before you hit the ground and burst into a fireball." I'm pretty sure a seatbelt will not protect you in that case.

[Fathom Zero]

Seatbelts don't block fire, I think

[The Leader]

and you're all like "oh no, what have I done" before you hit the ground and burst into a fireball.
:lol

[Esuohlim]

Fuck driving, dude. I don't think I've sat in a driver's seat since I got my license.

[RaNkeri]

I only use my license as an ID to buy booze.

[kahljorn]

DONT THEY HAVE LIKE LIMITED LICENSES IN YOUR COMMUNIST HOME COUNTRY?

YOU COULD PROBABLY GO TO JAIL FOR NOT USING IT

[Sethomas]

Wearing a seatbelt is a good idea. People pay far more attention to anomalies than to statistical generalities. I have a friend whose life was saved because his airbag had a mechanical failure in an accident--had the airbag gone off, it would have killed him. I've seen many stories of people who survived because they didn't wear their seatbelts, and one exemplary story where a kid I knew barely survived a car wreck and another kid in the car had so much forward momentum that the seatbelt dismembered his head and arms. Did the seatbelt kill that kid? No, the fact that he drove 80 mph into a tree did. Two other kids in the car that sat in the rear passenger seats had to be scraped out of the trunk compartment.

It's still important to not allow exceptions to statistical rules garner more attention than the actual lessons of those statistical rules. There are countless situations where a seatbelt or airbags will ADD danger to a crash, but in the business of garden variety crashes that represent 98% or more of the accidents people encounter, a seatbelt will be a vast improvement in one's safety. I mean, seriously, how many people PLAN on having an anomaly crash situation versus wanting to have the most comprehensive protection against the most likely dangers? And for the record, fires occur in something like less than 5% of deadly crashes. The car wreck I was in 7 years ago seemed like a perfect candidate for burning me alive, but car engines are very well designed to avoid that in crash scenarios. It's still a good idea to try to turn the ignition all the way off so there's no electrical current after a wreck, but that's just extra protection.

Take your own story: an uncle survived because of no seatbelt. He was a kid, so that happened thirty or so years ago? Because it was an argument against the status quo, it was so memorable that it seems relevant many years later. If your family is like most families in terms of driving history, it's probably witnessed multiple situations where a seatbelt saved someone's life in such a way that it was so taken for granted that people felt more anxiety about the financial damage to the car than the new lease on life.

Seriously, look up some basic equations from high school physics and apply them to a human being moving at only 25 miles per hour. It's pretty scary if you compare the slight momentary discomfort of a sudden stop when it's distributed across your torso by a belt than when it propels your face toward the windshield. A generation ago, when over-the-shoulder straps weren't standard, people would get bruises across their sternum because someone pulled out in front of them, they slam the brakes and their body gets slammed into the steering wheel.

[Fathom Zero]

Dude, I know. It's just wild stuff. And it wouldn't be wild if it happened all the time. I know another guy who wasn't wearing his seatbelt and looked down to play with his iPod. He was swiftly delivered to the next plane of existence.

And then there's the number of times the seatbelt saved my life in my aforementioned accidents. Seeing people's brains rattle around in their skull and their bones snap and stab themselves with the compound fractures. Fucking crazy stuff, mate.

[Dimnos]

Did you ever take your test FZ?

[Fathom Zero]

Haven't had the time. A lot of stuff's come up recently. But in either this week or the next. What's likely to happen is that I'm gonna get the Oldsmobile Alero from my great-grandmother in July (:x) then use that for practice, tests, etc.

[Zhukov]

I can't drive, and I've failed my learner test about a million times, including today. I'm a mental when it comes to figuring out who gives way, and I'm scared as when I think about freezing up at an intersection, giving lots of way while people behind me toot their horns and shake their fists.

[Kitsa]

I was signed up for "disabled driver" lessons and was a dismal failure. I was too hesitant because it seemed to me that everyone else on the road was out to kill me. They wanted me to use mirrors because I can't turn my head well, but I couldn't make any sense of the mirrors, that spatial sense was all kerfuckered in my head.

Finally they decided that I was going to get myself killed as a driver and that I would be much safer as the passenger of someone more capable. And, although it's frustrating to depend on others, I'd have to say I agree.

Still want to drive a golf cart someday, though.

[Dimnos]

Does anyone here drive?

[Esuohlim]

Driving sucks. Everywhere I need to be is within biking or walking distance, I don't have to pay for gas, and I get some goddamn exercise.

I hate living in Michigan because everyone has an unyielding boner about their cars, and some of the worst drivers in the world live here.

[The Leader]

Where do you live in Michigan? :O

[Kitsa]

Michigan drivers are some of the biggest assholes I've ever seen on the road, and I've lived in Chicago.

[Esuohlim]

Where do you live in Michigan? :O

http://matthewmatt.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/hand.jpg

[Kitsa]

Ann Arbor?

[The Leader]

You live northwest of me.

[The Leader]

Ann Arbor?
That's north of Ann Arbor. It's like, Lansing or something.

[Zomboid]

I just got my learner's license this year. I take public transportation to school and work, and it only takes about 15 minutes in either case. The only time I wish I had a vehicle is when I'd like to go and meet with friends who live on the other side of the city...but even then, drinking is pretty much a guarantee in those cases, so I'd be leaving my car wherever I drove it anyway.

[Esuohlim]

Let's just say that I live as close as I can to Detroit while still being surrounded by waspy Drew and Mike fans, Red Wings fans, and to be inconvenienced every year by the asinine Woodward Dream Cruise. >:

I got my driver's license two years ago just to have it and get it over with. I don't think I've driven since.

[Zhukov]

It takes me about two hours to get to and from work via bus, but I wouldn't drive a car even if I could.

I didn't get rich paying for petrol, which is about a trillion times more expensive here than in the US. In fact I didn't get rich.

[Sethomas]

I used to be a really paranoid, conscientious driver, going into the license process with the same anxieties as FZ. Blind spots and intersections drove me crazy because I'm very conservative about pulling onto a road if there are any oncoming cars on the horizon, even if there are two lanes. I HAD to learn to drive because I lived out the country and any hope of finding work or a social life required it. What ultimately helped me shake off my habitual anxieties was driving in a convertible with the top down whenever possible. The appeal wasn't so much any vane desires as it was the difference in the experience, like, how much more visibility you have on the road. Being able to hear cars in my blind spots and knowing how to relate that to using mirrors and such ultimately made it much easier to drive in general. I once again drive a convertible (2000 Chrysler Sebring, Jxi) and I feel like a dork driving around town with the top down, but it's still a much more comfortable experience. And they're not all that more expensive if you know how to shop for them. I paid $4500 for mine when it had 67k miles on it, though I had to teach myself how to become a mechanic because I developed a paranoia about its service history.

On that note, a few weeks ago I replaced the timing belt, water pump, and valve gaskets. The labor quotes I got for that job were around $1000.

[Kitsa]

how much did the parts cost you? What, from that experience, do you feel the time was actually worth?

These are non-hostile questions; I'm curious.

[Sethomas]

The parts came to around $120 by buying on Amazon. The trouble was that many garages won't install parts you buy yourself, whether because of their profit model or warranty issues. To go to a place like Meineke and have these jobs done, they'd buy the parts at absurd mark-up and I'd be paying around $1400.

For most people it would have been worth it to just save up and have a mechanic do the job. The problem for me was that my car has an interference engine and I bought it at a point where there was no way of knowing if the previous owner had the timing belt changed at the recommended interval. If a timing belt suddenly breaks on these engines (and there is no imminent warning in most cases), the engine basically cannibalizes itself and the cost of repair is usually more than the cost of replacing the car entirely.

Now, the water pump is driven by the timing belt and my car started making a noise implying a bad water pump. To access the water pump you have to remove the timing belt. If you remove the timing belt, you're already investing so much time to the project you may as well replace everything else you can spend money on at the time. I developed a mental image of the water pump locking up and eating the teeth off the timing belt and ruining my engine within a fraction of a second, so I was worried to drive anywhere before getting this done.

In the past two years I've taken on a tone of DIY projects, including completely refinishing the basement where I live. Although I often launch myself into situations over my head and go insane trying to work my way to a solution, I've steadily lost my tendency to be intimidated by absurd DIYs.

[Shyandquietguy]

I've had my license for almost two years and I can safely say I hate driving. However, the damn buses only run every half hour and like hell I'm going to try to play it safe by taking an earlier bus. Plus, a lot of people around here give me the heebie jeebies.

As per driving, it just takes time and practice to get over the jitters. You'll pretty much worry about everything but such things as a safe following distance and checking the mirrors before looking over the shoulder will come naturally when you stick to it.

PS, watch out for Prius' drivers. It's the car of the future so it can handle anything.

[kahljorn]

my timing belt went out recently but luckily we weren't driving when it happened so it didnt die :(

[Pentegarn]

Still that's a costly fix (if my parts knowledge is correct changing that on most vehicles requires the engine block to be dropped to get to it)

My transmission just went out. It works from 1st to 3rd, but once it gets to overdrive it can't go back. I unplugged the overdrive plug for now so I can drive off freeway (and on freeway if I don't mind being noisy about it) but I am going to have to look at getting a new car soon it looks like :(

[10,000 Volt Ghost]

http://matthewmatt.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/hand.jpg

Count to 6?

FZ: My dad's Alero just died a few days ago.

[10,000 Volt Ghost]

The appeal wasn't so much any vane desires as it was the difference in the experience, like, how much more visibility you have on the road. Being able to hear cars in my blind spots and knowing how to relate that to using mirrors and such ultimately made it much easier to drive in general.

I can understand what you mean about the blind spots. I learned to drive in a 96 ford windstar. Took me at least 4 tries to pass the road test. I hit a car on one of them.

I currently drive a ford focus hatchback. Its nice but its a 2 door and the posts after the doors end cause huge blindspots so you almost have to have your seat a certain distance from the pedals so to be able to see.

[kahljorn]

right after the car got the timing belt fixed the transmission went out with a kind similar deal. Couldn't get into overdrive/fourth gear without it slipping like crazy :(

maybe you have a solenoid issue like i did. If you keep driving it might eventually register a check engine thing.

[Colonel Flagg]

The clutch once went out in my vehicle about 3 iterations past, while I was parked at a Chinese restaurant. Fortunately (?) the timing belt went soon afterward, and I had to get rid of it. :(

I loved that car, too. :tear

[kahljorn]

yea cars are a bitch. i want to live somewhere that i can take public transportation everywhere

but at the same time i dont want to take public transportation :(

[Zhukov]

I used to live in the 'city', and you could walk from one side to the other in ten minutes, it was great. Now I live in the suburbs and public transport is pretty shitty.

[Kitsa]

We have public transportation for use of the disabled. I had (have? had?) a card for it, but they randomly drop funding and tell us they're not hauling us around anymore. I've never had to use it, I just liked knowing it was around if I needed it.

This city is really crappy toward the disabled. You don't want to hear my post office rant.

[Tadao]

Did you punch someone in the face?

[Kitsa]

Wanted to, anyway.