After hours and hours of driving lessons, the day had finally come! Yesterday was the day of my road test, and to be honest, I was convinced I was going to fail. I wouldn’t say I’m the best driver, but I wasn’t HORRIBLE at it. I did my 6 hours with the driving instructor and had drove around occasionally with my dad, but it took me awhile to get the hang of working with a car. My instructor had scheduled my test two days in advance, and I wasn’t prepared at all. Despite urging him that I needed more time to practice, he was convinced that I would do fine. When telling my family, I was going to take the test, on the other hand, I was immediately met with laughter… Bets were thrown around the room, as they were all so sure that I was going to fail. Most of my cousins had gotten their licenses recently as well, and the added pressure of keeping the streak alive just made me even more anxious.
I was extremely nervous going into my test, I’m pretty sure the DMV examiner could see it as well. I practiced U-turns early in the morning, which was the one thing I really struggled with, and I really felt like I got the hang of it, but the pessimist in me was just thinking about all the things that could go wrong. We pulled up to the front of the line, I set up the car, and then I was off. I started off with a few turns, and surprisingly, they were all smooth and efficient. Coming into the test, I was extremely confident in my parallel parking, but that was where it all went wrong. I signaled right, and reversed into the open space, and BOOM, I hit the curb. I practiced parallel parking hundreds of times, and whether it be going too close or too far to the curb, I had never actually hit the curb during my lessons. In a state of panic, I spun the wheel all the way to the left and drove back out to try it again. The second time, I had successfully pulled in and parked. I knew that in most cases, hitting the curb was an automatic failure and, in the moment, I really thought it was over. I drove around a bit more, and when the test was over, he tapped his tablet and out came a little receipt. The examiner handed me the piece of paper and I probably re-read it 5 times until I realized I had passed!! For the next few hours, I was in utter shock that I passed despite hitting the curb. I’m honestly just glad I got it over with, and now that I finally have my license, I will definitely be looking forward to all the future road trips and late night drives I will be having next year in Boston!
