Yeah, then when you do what scottb says (getting a bigger / faster boat), you should be carefull too. Afterall, you'll most likely be driving a killing machine with 2 to 3 times the weight........with no brakes !

Hyper,

Do me a favor and complete your DE over by the lake and away from the Sunbury/Galena area.

Good luck and safe driving.

Iggy, in the crash I mentioned earlier, there was a girl with him, she was in the other 1/2 of the car, got out of the section she was in, it was completley around here, and 1/2 the size of her. Got out, walked a few hundred yards to a friends house with a concusion and called for help. Amazing how that adrenaline helps sometimes. RBTNT....Havent been over there in a while....

Be careful DUDE whatever you do!!!!!!!!! don't act like any of us aforementioned ( all the posts up till this one , 'grasshopper') I've personally reduced a lot of good stuff to scrap...... so at least give the chit a chance and be a good kid' OH TAY !!!!!!!!!!! TRUE !!!!!!

Ah yes drivers ed. Which was a prerequisite for auto tech. I had class once a week. I'd go in and mount up a set of used tires. Come next week, I'd put the bald ones back on the rack and mount up another set. Did that most of the semester until the instructor took me aside and asked what happened to his rack of tires! Told me that he didn't want to pay for the disposal costs. Neither did I. To this day they are residing next to some old appliances at the bottom of a gully. Ah, those were the days....

OH -- and don't drink and drive-- OR ride with people that are doing it. I have walked home a few times from rides that the driver thought it was OK to drink while HE had passengers.

DRIVERS ED IS NOT CRAP!!!

I was lucky with my high school instructor...he took me out to a twisty set of turns in cliffs hundreds of feet above the water, then turned told me to take the turns at high speed. Naturally I nearly wiped the car out, he seized control of the car with his override steering and I shook for about a week afterwards.

"There" he said, "I guess you kids don't know how to drive at high speeds after all!"

A few years later when I obtained a really fast car, it was this instructors training of how to take these curves at high speed that enabled me to survive street racing on the same road, when others died.

I still don't know how I lived to age twenty.

My advice: buy a slow car first, have a few accidents with it which you will, only then get a faster car.

I did several 180s in the rain with my first car, a 1967 Grand Prix with a 283 v-8. Big car with a little motor, ideal for first timers!

BUCKLE UP/SHUT UP AND DRIVE CAREFUL THERE ARE TOO MANY LIVES AT STAKE AND ONE OF THEM IS YOURS/Darin

BUCKLE UP/SHUT UP AND DRIVE CAREFUL THERE ARE TOO MANY LIVES AT STAKE AND ONE OF THEM IS YOURS/ had one accident in thirty three years and was before the seat belt law/three surgerys later they peeled my nose off the dash and back on my face, its no joke!!!!!!!!!!!Darin

Excellent advice Troutly just offered. I learned to drive by driving tractors and farm equipment; then took a job at a local car dealer at 15. It was a great education. I agree that a lot of DE is somewhat dated info. It eas so even when I took it in 1990 or so.

As far as "shock factor learning;" about twice each year, our local Volunteer Fire Depts, EMS Crews, and Auxilliary Police; joined up with the local towing company, and they hauled about 4 DESTROYED wrecks, usually resulting from a fatality from out of town, to the HS parking, The lot had only two exits, and man we used to tear out of there like the Daytona 500. I was on the FD, and I was still stupid. Anyhow, the said volunteers would man stations at each exit, and stop each car on its way out of the lot, and explain that someone died in each of those cars from something stupid. It really did have an affect on you, often seeing blood stained interiors and seatbelts.

When I was in middle school, we had a local teenager in a Mustang Mach 1, serious old school power, launch himself and his girlfriend off the local back road drag strip, and hit a 3 foot diameter oak tree at about 6 feet high, doing approximately 135 mph. It literally split the car in two, from the grill to the wing on the back; including the block. If I remember right; he died instantly, and she was found in a tree about 100 yards away and survived by some grace of God. That car; I mean 2 heaps of metal, was also put on display on the front grounds of the HS for about a week or so.

On every accident I have ever been on; I have NEVER cut a dead person out of a seatbelt. I have cut plenty of people out of cars, dead and alive, but every single one that was in a seatbelt, made it to the Medic unit with a fighting chance. You always know when you roll up on the accident, and see that 'forehead bubble" in the windshield; "this is going to be a bad one."