Local Dispatch: Foreign student comes a long way in learning to drive
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I passed my driver's test!" I cried and jumped like a 5-year-old seeing pandas for the first time in the zoo.
I got my temporary Pennsylvania driver's license last weekend in Penn Hills after four months' constant practice behind the wheel. It was my belated rite of passage since I am 10 years older than the state's legal driving age of 16.
Accompanied by a soft-spoken, blue-eyed young examiner, I was in and out of the parallel parking zone in two minutes. I had only practiced the move 100 times. I then slowly drove along Rodi Road behind a crawling sweeper truck to make the loop from Stoneledge Drive to Darrell Drive. In 15 minutes, the test was over.
"Congratulations! Not many people pass on their first try," said a middle-aged clerk at the counter where I posed for my new license photo.
I feel it's surreal that I can operate a four-wheel machine in a city famous for its hilly roads. It's not easy for Pittsburgh's foreign drivers, more accustomed to flat land, to deal with the winding roads and the narrow, two-way streets, on both sides of which cars often park back to back.
As a matter of fact, I had never felt the urgency of learning to drive when I was in my hometown, Guangzhou, China, a metropolis of 10 million people where public transportation is as convenient as flagging a New York Yellow cab. But once I arrived in America last summer, I realized that learning to drive is a survival skill not only for Americans but for aliens like me, who want to travel freely in the great Land of Opportunity.
In my first few months in Pittsburgh, I've learned that nothing in America is within walking distance. If I were told it would take 10 minutes to get to a place, it meant by car.
Learning to drive in Pittsburgh was unforgettable. I attended four lessons instructed by Ellie Miller, who recently retired from Easy Method Driving School.
In her 28 years of teaching, Ellie experienced dozens of life-threatening moments with her foreign students. She recalled a 24-year-old Indian student who made a left turn, driving into the oncoming traffic lane by instinct because in India, drivers keep left. Fortunately, there was no traffic coming.
First Published March 26, 2010 12:00 am
