Cars

One of the most important steps in becoming an adult is your first car. When you have a car, you don’t need to rely on other people for rides to and from where you want to go. You also learn a great deal, thus making you a more responsible person.
I live in Putney, a small town in southeastern Vermont, but I worked and went to school in Brattleboro. Brattleboro is a slightly larger town about a half an hour south of Putney. Since we had to keep stopping to pick up kids, the bus ride to school took an hour. As such, I had to get up a half hour earlier on days I had to ride the bus. That was a huge pain, especially since I hated the bus anyway. After I got my car, I could sleep in. I could also go out to lunch when I was at school, therefore being able to eat where I wanted, and not in the cafeteria. In addition, I could drive myself home after school. That was beneficial because I could hang out with my friends, and go to concerts and movies. I could do whatever I wanted, as long as I made sure my parents were okay with it. My social life improved greatly with the acquisition of my car.

If I hadn’t had my car, I could not have worked where I did. I worked at a Lebanese restaurant in downtown Brattleboro. Part of my job was rolling grape leaves in the wholesale department on Mondays and Tuesdays. The job was great, but I never really knew when I was going to be finished. In wholesale, you work until you’re done. When my parents had to come pick me up after work, I had to call them when I was finished, and then hang out for a half an hour until they got there. That didn’t work out very well, especially in the winter.

With my car, I was also able to drive myself to all of my appointments, which made them easier to set up, since I only had to work around my schedule, and not my parents’. I was on the basketball team, and when I had practice or a game, I didn’t have to rely on my parents. No one else on the team was from Putney, so it was an inconvenience for them to have to drive me home. I was free to come and go as I pleased, assuming I didn’t stay out too late. I wasn’t always very good about getting home before my curfew.

My curfew started out as eleven, but I convinced my parents during the summer between junior and senior year that it was unfair to make me be home before midnight. After about three months of my new curfew, I stopped paying attention to what time it was. I was staying out until all hours of the night, and my parents didn’t know because they were asleep by the time I got home. One morning, at about four, I came waltzing in after an invigorating night of hanging out in a parking lot. My dad was sitting at the kitchen table. He didn’t say anything to me; he looked up when I walked in and then went about his business. When I woke up the next day, my mother had some choice words to say about me coming home at four in the morning. I tried to get home on time after that, but sometimes it was just unachievable. Usually, when I was faced with hanging out with my friends just a little longer or driving all the way home, I would decide to stay for another hour. Then an hour would turn to two or three and I’d get home really late again. I wasn’t very responsible about that.

A curfew is just one of the responsibilities that come with having a car. Your whole life becomes much more complicated, and you find yourself having to deal with situations on your own. When I used to hang out at the Teen Center, I always used to park at Sanel Auto Parts. It was right next door and you didn’t have to pay a parking meter. There was a sign up saying that anyone who parked there who wasn’t a Sanel customer would be towed at the owner’s expense. I, like everyone else, ignored this sign and parked there every day. One day, when I went back outside to drive somewhere, my car wasn’t there anymore. I had to go into Sanel, find out which company had towed my car and then call that company. I was told that it would cost me fifty dollars to get my car back. Luckily, my friend offered to drive me to my bank, and then to my car. It was a real hassle, but I had to do it. I didn’t have someone else to fall back on, like I was used to. You have to be able to solve your own problems and pay your own way when you own your own car.

Financially, I was really lucky when it came to my parents. They actually bought my first car for me. They also paid for my second, third and fourth cars. But a lot of people don’t have it that easy. Cars are expensive to buy. Then, if something breaks, they’re expensive to fix. My parents also pay for my insurance, but many people don’t have that luxury, either. Cars need gas, which is getting more expensive by the day. I have probably spent about 300 dollars on parking tickets alone. I have been pulled over for speeding four times, I have two written warnings on my record, but I have never gotten a speeding ticket. Those are expensive. Most tickets are for well over 100 dollars. The expenses just keep adding up. It’s easy to spend thousands of dollars just on a car. You need to have a steady job or a pretty hefty allowance to cover the costs.

The responsibilities also extend to punctuality. For the first time, I had to look at the clock to see when I had to leave. My parents would remember sometimes, and they would suggest that I got going, but it was really up to me. When I had an appointment, I had to get myself there on time. It was the same with school, basketball, work, and plans with friends. I come from a long line of people that are bad at getting to places on time. I was always late for school, and had to sit through detention after detention because I just couldn’t leave the house on time. I tried to make up for that by speeding, but then I eventually left later and later, until I was tardy again. I finally learned my lesson after being bored at a good 15 detentions. You cannot go through life always being late. It makes you an unreliable person, and people won’t be able to trust you with anything important.

The most amount of responsibility comes with accidents. I have plenty of experience in this area. I have hit a tree, another car, a curb, a bank, a cat, and a guardrail, as well as having been hit once by someone else. As you can see, I am a bad driver. I am well acquainted with the sore back and stiff neck that accompanies an accident. Luckily I haven’t sustained any serious injuries yet. I have only had to fill out an accident report once, and that was for the only accident that wasn’t my fault. Car crashes entail a lot of questions, a lot of paperwork, and a lot of diagrams of your version of what happened. It is very stressful.

After all of this, I have a lot of phobias about driving. I don’t like getting close to the right side of the road, I don’t like driving in any kind of snow or ice, I hate it when other people wait until the last second to slam on their brakes, and I’m paranoid that a cat or dog or small child will run in front of my car. Because of this, I am a more responsible driver. I am very cautious when I’m uncertain, and I drive much more slowly, especially around corners.

I take driving very seriously now, and I have grown up a lot after spending time behind the wheel of a car. Really serious accidents make you sit up and pay attention. When you think about how easily you could have been killed or badly hurt, it makes you reconsider before you risk taking a corner too fast, or drag racing with your friends. Some people take longer than others, but everyone eventually matures, and driving has a large part in that.