On Saturday grandpa took her driving. First time on the highway. She was nervous especially when cars passed her either way. He took on back roads with very little traffic and she was slowly getting her confidence built up when the sirens and lights came on from behind. Scared her to death. Cop told her she showed all the signs of a drunk driver. Then he laughed in her face and walked away. Of course she quit right there and grandpa drove home and she cried all the way home. :'( Grandpa said she was doing really well for first time out. Darn cop. What was he doing on a back road?
Well that's certainly not the kind of experience anybody needs on their first driving lesson!! :-x That cop could hve been far more sympathetic instead of laughing. He obviously doesn't rememeber what it was like first time out driving a car. I hope your granddaughter doesn't let this affect her learning to drive as this was an isolated incident and not likely to ever happen again.
Oh, Donna! How disheartening for her. This spring was my Caity's first driving experience, too. I was really stressed about the experience, too, but I kept telling her she is only going to do better with practice. I am very pleased with her improvement from then until now. Just keep encouraging her doing little drives from place to place. The officer wasn't very thoughtful of her feelings, but remind her he was doing his job since he thought there was perhaps an impaired driver on the road. I would much rather him be wrong than to let it go and there was an accident due to his negligence of his responsibility keeping other drivers safe.
Donna, that is so sad--poor little girl was nervous anyway, and then to be laughted at by a policeman! Grandpa showed great restraint in the situation. Keep encouraging her, and tell her if she never learns to drive well, she will fit right in here in Texas!
That will certainly put a damper on the learning experience. Maybe he was just releasing some built up tension with a laugh when he found out the driver wasn't drunk. Either way though I know it was a slam to her confidence for that to happen and that's a shame. I actually ran a cop off the road when my Dad took me out for a driving lesson the first time driving a stick shift. Country road, lots of curves and turns, I was driving a 1961 VW, stick shift. My Dad told me to slow down at the next turn, down shift while I was turning, oh yeah and don't run into the ditch while I was doing all that. Too many things to do, I couldn't stay in my lane and the cop coming the other way had to hit the ditch. Thankfully it was a very shallow ditch, no damage to him or the car and he was a dad who had kids he had taught to drive so he was very nice about it.
Hi Donna, hope she gets over her bad experience with that cop,..his being so insensitive and the reason he was on this back road might be connected,.. .
Oh,that's too bad about your daughter.Tell her not to let it get her discouraged.Better he laughed than made some grumpy,smart remarks.He was probably on back roads looking for people,especially kids, partying.Maybe he was disappointed when he found driver was sober.I didn't get my license until my mid 20s.When my daughter got her learner's permit I let her drive me all over & got out of the habit of driv ing.I keep up my license because I've had to drive when my husband was laid up.Of course I got lots of instructions (Boy,did I). sNs
I can remember My Grandfather taking me out first time. About jerked his head off with stick shift. And they use have curb lip and very narrow roads. And extra wide cars.
Donna, what a good idea to ask your daughter to read our comments! The one by Toni is especially great. Hopefully that should be a boost. Tell her that the first time I drove, I was so tense that I had a lock grip on the steering wheel. I was about to scrape too close to a parked car, and it was all my father could do to wrestle the steering wheel away!
