Defensive Driving Class

There is no question that a defensive driving class can be beneficial for several reasons. It serves as a refresher to help long time drivers remember how they used to drive before all those bad habits set in, and it provides an opportunity to review the new rules of the road that have been added since the days of crank starts and hand signals. Best of all, it can lower one’s liability auto insurance ten percent a year for three years – that’s not a bad return on a $35 investment and one six-and-a-half hour Saturday morning every thirty-six months spent in a stuffy church basement. With a little research an enterprising individual can save even more money by signing up for a reduced rate defensive driving course sponsored by special interest groups and organizations such as the Elks, the Red Hat Society or the Ku Klux Klan. I discovered my class in an ad in the back of the local newspaper for only $17. It was sponsored by the National Organization of Old Drivers and scheduled at the local library.

I knew that the cheap classes filled up quickly, so I showed up early to register in the falling snow. A line of seniors, like the walking wounded was already out the library door and around the entrance.

“Shit!”

I joined the throng behind a man with two hearing aids pushing a walker and we inched along toward the distant registration desk.

According to the literature, “The National Organization of Old Drivers – NOOD (pronounced nude) is not affiliated with other organizations of old and/or retired people. NOOD is not a nudist organization, nor does it espouse or condone the philosophy of nudism. Although some of NOOD’s older and more addled members have from time to time been stopped while driving nude by the police, nude driving by the elderly is not an activity that is encouraged or sanctioned by this organization.” The disclaimer ended with the warning, “A NOOD Defensive Driving course is not a guarantee, either stated or implied, against having an accident, and NOOD is not responsible for the accidents that my occur driving to, from or after taking the course.”

I signed up for the next Saturday morning class.

On the appointed date I arrived early in order to get a good seat, fifteen minutes before the 9:30 mandatory starting time stated in bold on the registration form. But my seating fears proved to be unnecessary because the library parking lot was grid-locked with my NOOD classmates all vying for the three handicapped parking spaces close to the entrance. I silently slipped my Miata around them and into a distant slot away from the crowd. I was comfortably ensconced in my uncomfortable metal folding chair well before the others drifted in to find seats. That took nearly an hour.

After everyone was finally situated, Bob the instructor, a beefy, red-faced retired NYC Police detective began the official opening ceremonies for the remaining five hours. “I’m a volunteer. NOOD don’t pay me for this, so I don’t take any crap from anybody either. Don’t talk when I talk. Turn off yer cell phones or yer out of here.” He was in the middle of his welcoming speech when the man with the two hearing aids I recognized from registration pushed the door in with a loud bang and wheeled his squeaking walker into the room. “And where do you think yer going? Yer late!”

But the man paid him no mind and continued squeaking across the tile floor.

“I said yer late.”

“What… Me… Huh?”

“Whatayer deaf too?”

“What… I can’t hear you… I'm deaf.” He pulled out both hearing aids and re-adjusted the volume controls until there was an audible squeal. Then he stuffed them back into his ears. “There was no place to park my Escalade…”

“Find a seat.”

“…and I gotta pee.”

The man’s proclamation set off a flurry of similar comments and before Bob could stop them, a substantial number of the men and a few of the women scurried for the door to beat the man pushing the walker toward the bathrooms down the hall.

“Ten minute pee break,” Bob announced. “But no more than that or yer gonna be here until seven o’clock tonight when it’s dark out and nobody will be able to drive home!”

A half hour after the ten-minute pee break, after they were able to find their seats again, we finally began filling out the necessary NOOD forms.

“Don’t write nothing,” Bob cautioned, “until I tell yer exactly what to write and how to write it.” He held up the one I had already completed and then delivered a brief lecture on block letter and non-block letter printing. To illustrate his point he printed “BOB” all in uppercase on the portable blackboard. Next to that he printed “Bob.” “Not this one.” He emphatically crossed out “Bob,” breaking the chalk. “This one.” He underlined “BOB” three times. “Now print yer name between the lines from top to bottom line in large block letters exactly as it is on the board on yer tent form.”
“I don’t have a tent form.”

Bob held up his with the printed “BOB” and folded it in half. “Now it’s a tent form! Do it. Then put yer completed tent form in front of yer so I know yer names.”

In unison twenty-nine people copied from the portable blackboard. The results were seventeen BOBs and twelve Bobs. The five people returning from the bathroom didn’t print anything. I printed CUBBY on my tent form and put it in front of me.

It took twenty-five minutes for all the errors to be corrected. Then the entire process was repeated filling out and correcting the carbon-copy official registration forms, which took longer because the mistakes had to be undone in triplicate.

“Because yer didn’t follow my instructions there ain’t enough registration forms to go around. That means some of yer won’t get credit for the course. And that means we have to eliminate some of yer from the class, unless yer want to sit there all day just because yer find me so charming!”

A heated debate started. Some wanted to expel one or two of the non-BOB/Bobs who caused the problem, others wanted a more democratic approach like a secret ballot or drawing straws to decide. In the end, when a consensus wasn’t reached, a woman with big eye magnifying glasses from her recent double cataract surgery volunteered, and we selected the deaf man with the two hearing aids who was still in the bathroom. The over-enrollment crisis was averted.

By then it was time for lunch and a prescription medication break, to be followed by a short power nap.

Safe driving videos were on the agenda for the afternoon session. However, setting up a VCR proved to be an even more daunting task than winning World War II for members of the “Greatest Generation” who grew up electronically impaired listening only to AM tube radio. There were several unsuccessful attempts to get the VHS tape to rewind. Then 87-year-old Cpl. Vincenzo Ragussa, a 19-year-old Pathfinder when he parachuted into France the day before D-Day on June 5, 1944, took charge and set out on a reconnaissance mission to the main floor of the library. In minutes he returned with an iPod-wearing teenager. The kid switched the TV to channel 3, pressed PLAY and the screen crackled to life, all without removing his iPod earbuds. The room filled with sounds of car crashes, people complaining that they couldn’t see the screen and the occasional snoring from the back of the room, where several people were extending nap time.

A brief question/answer period followed clips from “Cops” and “The World’s Greatest Car Chases.” Bob announced (a) why the “Three Second Following Rule” was the best way to calculate a safe distance between your car and the one in front of you. “Unless yer need yer calculator with the big numbers to count to three and crash because yer have to get it out of yer pocketbook, ladies!” and (b) how his extensive record of near-fatal car accidents and DUIs best qualified him to teach the class. “We had a saying on the job, ‘If yer want to stop a thief, yer don’t call a cop, yer get advice from another thief!’”

At 4 PM, when the shadows had grown longer across the parking lot and the group had reached meltdown stage, graduation commenced. Bob pulled from the desk drawer the official forms we had block printed a lifetime before and in exchange for our positive course evaluations and a blood oath that we would never admit, even under torture, that he had released us early, the ceremony began. Bob mispronounced each participant’s name and handed out the diplomas.

I clutched in my sweaty hand the hard-earned guarantee of lower insurance rates and rushed through the library door, hoping to be gone and home before the others even realized the class was over. Outside in the fading daylight I was surprised to see the man with the hearing aids expelled so many hours before still trying to steer his dented white Escalade out of the parking lot. I called to him and waved my diploma. “Class valedictorian!” I shouted, but he didn’t see me or hear me.

Then I steered my Miata around the small pile-up of Lexus, Infinity and Lincoln SUVs that had turned the library parking lot into… well, into a parking lot. And I sped off into the deepening darkness toward safety and home, knowing I had three years before the next time I’d have to take the class.

© 2012 Joseph E. Scalia