A12 The Region The Boston Globe WEDNESDAY, JULY 31, 2019

way from Chicago to Ames, Io-
wa, during the 2016 presiden-
tial campaign (turned out there
wasn’t a story there); or bribing
my younger sister to drive me
to a blood plasma clinic in Phil-
adelphia to interview people;
or, as I did in my second week
on the job here, waking up at 4
a.m, flying down to Newark,
flying up to Presque Isle, Maine,
and then getting a 30-minute
ride from a school principal to
get to my assignment. Looking
out the plane windows at the
potato fields below, I knew the
time had come to find a more
straightforward route.
So, reluctant but deter-
mined, I secured my learner’s
permit (ask me about the penal-
ties for 16-year-olds who drag
race) and signed up for 10
hours of driving lessons at a lo-
cal school. I texted my little sis-
ter, asking her to remind me
which was the brake. I wasn’t a
Driver, with a capital D, but
maybe I could just learn to
drive.
My journey to becoming an
elderly student driver had been
circuitous. I grew up in Phila-
delphia as one of five kids with
a single mom, so it would have
been very useful to get my li-
cense as a teenager. But I barely
considered it. My best friend
drove me around in her blue
Volvo, and many other people
drove me in their cars, and I al-
so took trains, buses, and cabs
and biked and walked.
In 2012 I had a brief lapse
and drove for a few months
with a learner’s permit, but
then I accidentally crashed the
family minivan into two parked
cars while coming out of the
driveway at 3 miles per hour,
and I soured on the whole
thing. Who needed it?
A lot of young people are
with me: The percentage of
teens with driver’s licenses has
dropped precipitously in the
past few decades, according to
studies from the University of
Michigan Transportation Re-
search Institute, with just a
quarter of 16-year-olds getting

uDRIVING
Continued from Page A

their licenses in 2014 compared

to nearly half in 1983.

People who have driver’s li-

censes can’t imagine the many

benefits of a licenseless life, but

it can be quite pleasant. Not

knowing how to drive binds

you, necessarily, to other peo-

ple. For example, you can’t

drive a U-Haul yourself, so

someone has to help you move.

I liked always having a compan-

ion, and I was convinced that

getting a driver’s license would

be pure isolation. Anyway, I be-

lieved it wouldn’t be much lon-

ger until the advent of self-driv-

ing cars — a technology whose

progress I monitored closely.

My brother called me an am-

bassador from the future.

I quickly discovered that

Boston is, objectively, a terrible

place to learn to drive. Out of

200 cities ranked for the safety

of their drivers, Boston ranked

198th, and it has the worst

rush-hour gridlock of any major

metropolitan area in the coun-

try. Also, why are there no lanes

in roundabouts and why is ev-

eryone always honking in

them?

My driving instructor often

posed unanswerable riddles,

like, “What is the difference be-

tween pulling into traffic versus

starting a three-point turn?” (I

think the answer is... noth-

ing?) and “What is on the back

of a car?” I said, “lights” and he

said “what else” and I said “a

fender” and he said “no.”

Soon, I learned the basics of

parallel parking, which I never

imagined participating in. My

system made no sense and led

to different results every time,

but I became sure of one thing:

It had been extremely stupid of

me to trust my life when I was

in high school to a bunch of 16-

year-olds who had no idea what

they were doing. I had been

blissfully calm in all my years in

the passenger seat, assuming

that people who drove must

have been privy to some kind of

secret expertise. Now I knew

the truth. They were winging it

all along, just like me.

Driving on Interstate 95 was

especially daunting. I was terri-

fied of changing lanes, having

never understood what a “blind

spot” was. Also, when I studied

my rearview mirror, I often

thought that the car behind me

was actually next to me. I tend-

ed to grip the steering wheel

like I was drowning and pivot

my whole body to the right

when turning. After the lessons

I would collapse onto my bed,

exhausted by the strength it re-

quired to never hit the curb on

the winding nightmares that

were the Arborway, Jamaic-

away, and Riverway.

Sometimes, though, I would

catch a tiny glimmer of the

thrill of the open road, that feel-

ing of total independence that

all those country songs are

about. (Then I would find my-

self lost in a pitch-black under-

ground maze and the feeling

would evaporate.)

On the day of my driving

test, I stood in line with about a

dozen teenagers outside of a lo-

cal high school, while a man

with an earpiece barked in-

structions at us. By the time it

was my turn, my heart was flut-

tering. I had spent so much

time sure that I was not a driv-

er, but it seemed more and

more plausible that I was about

to become one.

I turned the key in the igni-

tion and the woman from the

RMV looked at me with a mix-

ture of pity and disdain. The car

was already on. All right, I

thought, it’s time to summon

the secret knowledge of all the

drivers who have ever chauf-

feured me.

I pulled out. I signaled. I re-

versed. I made a three-point-

turn. I parallel parked. I drove

around the block and pulled

back in. Who was I now, six

minutes later? Had everything

changed?

“Congratulations, you

passed,” said the woman from

the RMV, the same way a per-

son might say, “This is a very

boring and unimportant day in

a string of similar ones.” I was

reeling and I felt exactly the

same as before. Was this all

there was to it? Was this what

drivers experienced all along?

I stepped out of the car and

blinked in the sun. Then I un-

locked my bike, climbed on,

and wove between cars all the

way home.

Zoe Greenberg can be reached at

[email protected].

Follow her on Twitter

@zoegberg.

Forthisstudentdriver,Bostonistheultimatetest

JOSH REYNOLDS FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE

Zoe Greenberg practiced her parking skills as brother-in-law Richard Cozzens kept an eye on the curb.

Peoplewhohave

driver’slicenses

can’timaginethe

manybenefitsofa

licenselesslife,but

itcanbequite

pleasant.Not

knowinghowto

drivebindsyouto

otherpeople.

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