2 down, 1 to go

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

I guess I should explain that Lena has a fear of driving. She has been in two auto accidents years ago. Coincidentally, her father was driving both times. It seems that the concept of her father possibly being a bad driver doesn't come into the mix.

I tried to teach her to drive shortly after she arrived. The business park out at the airport is great for teaching on Sundays. Large wide street (suitable for small planes), no businesses open and very little traffic. It was going well until I had her make a right turn. She made the turning maneuver fine but after completing the turn she did not release the wheel. We kept turning right, up over the curb and onto the lawn in front of a business. She finally found the brake and stopped. That ended her lesson and was the last time I was able to get her to try. That is 4 years and 8 months ago.

Gary, that's a great exchange at the border.

My dad had enough "points" after WW2 to fly home rather than take a ship. His first flight from Germany to England crashed on landing (his first time in an airplane). No one was seriously hurt, remarkably enough. He never flew again. Ever.

The time during which I was teaching Alla to drive was difficult. And I said at the time...if you can, PAY someone to do this. But she learned to drive before we got divorced, so now all is OK.

[1HappyGuy 45]

I agree Gary, if I could get her to do that I would. What's really frustrating for me is that she doesn't realize how different her life will be. She won't have to wait for me or her son to be around, she can shop or visit whenever she likes and she can find a job that she enjoys. I know that she liked working in a woman's clothing store but it was within walking distance from our home. Our bus service leaves a lot to be desired as to times and places, not to mention the high cost (IMO).

Plus, I would really like to avoid going shopping. I don't think she's too excited about running to the store for beer.

[slim 1,514]

the moment that I point out something she's doing wrong she gets into a crazy pi$$ed-off mood and stops noticing anything and anyone on the road.

Imagine that, a woman who get's mad when you point out what she's doing wrong.

if you can, PAY someone to do this. But she learned to drive before we got divorced, so now all is OK.

Yep. And if you do pay someone to teach her, a year or two later you'll get, "why didn't you just teach me to drive? We could've saved money. You so stupid man and never have responsibility for your wife."

I would really like to avoid going shopping.

I refuse to go shopping with my wife. I've enjoyed several nice naps in "the man chair" but even the VS fashion shows aren't enough to get me there. "If you wanna go shopping, call your friend."

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Imagine that, a woman who get's mad when you point out what she's doing wrong.

Yep. And if you do pay someone to teach her, a year or two later you'll get, "why didn't you just teach me to drive? We could've saved money. You so stupid man and never have responsibility for your wife."

I refuse to go shopping with my wife. I've enjoyed several nice naps in "the man chair" but even the VS fashion shows aren't enough to get me there. "If you wanna go shopping, call your friend."

I agree there is no way you are going to "win" in the teaching to drive sweepstakes. Either there are going to be a few "silent nights" or you are going to be a "no good husband who cannot do anything to care about his wife". Try to choose the one that results in the least cost, least chance of bodily injury and property damage. Once they learn to drive, they will forget all about it.

Though I HAVE heard from her when she says "Do you yell at the boys when you teach them?" No. "Why?" I don't have to. "SERGEY!!!!!!! IDI SUHDAH!!!!!!!!! Does gary yell at you when you are driving/" No.

Edited August 13, 2010 by Gary and Alla

[Brad and Vika 129]

Well... yesterday, after almost getting into an accident we had a "talk" where I basically said I'm not teaching her to drive anymore. To which she responded: "yeah, you are just scared I'll damage your f-ing car" lalala, so yeah..... gotta go get a permit (she's driving with her Ukrainian license) and then off to driving lessons with a professional.

I can't argue the "no you didn't break, you hit the accelerator" ever again. She drives fine, but the moment that I point out something she's doing wrong she gets into a crazy pi$$ed-off mood and stops noticing anything and anyone on the road.

We'll see how that goes, of course, but I'd rather drive the car myself at this point.

I hired some one to teach Vika and save my blood pressure. Seemed to work OK, and no problems or blame cast yet.

Edited August 13, 2010 by Brad and Vika

[clueless_in_usa 8]

I hired some one to teach Vika and save my blood pressure. Seemed to work OK, and no problems or blame cast yet.

I had to pay for a full driving course too, because the times I tried to teach her we almost killed each other, during and after the driving session

Besides, a driving certificate saves on insurance, and there is no blame when I ask: "why do you do that like that?"

There are still a few things to work on, but in general she can now take the car without my supervision, as long as I tell her exactly every turn she needs to make and every road she needs to take (even when to change lanes in preparation for a turn). Now I am not a driving instructor, but a human GPS

[slim 1,514]

"Do you yell at the boys when you teach them?" No. "Why?" I don't have to. "SERGEY!!!!!!! IDI SUHDAH!!!!!!!!! Does gary yell at you when you are driving/" No.

A perfect example of "I don't have trouble communicating with my wife because she speaks Russian... I have trouble communicating with her because she's a woman."

as long as I tell her exactly every turn she needs to make and every road she needs to take (even when to change lanes in preparation for a turn). Now I am not a driving instructor, but a human GPS

Exactly why I won't ride anywhere with my wife.

When she gets back... we're finally going to take it to the next level and she's going to learn to drive my stickshift Jeep. "What kind of foreigner can't drive a stick?" We've also been talking for several years about her learning to change a tire. I've never really worried about her needing to change one herself (she'll probably have no problems finding a man to change it for her) but I think she would like to know how to do it, and I'd feel a lot better knowing she could do it without "owing someone" for their services. Who knows. Maybe that slight bit of mechanical inclination and understanding will lend itself to other tough mechanical devices like combination locks. "Why zis stupid f'king lock AGAIN not open? Somesing AGAIN not work whis stupid lock. You must fix." That's funny, works just fine for me. "Because it's American lock. You American, baby. I not American. I am strong, indepensive Russian woman who so gorgeous and so wonderful and you must buy for me diamond." Just open the dang door.

[LvivLovers 39]

I have to say, my wife is a great driver. I can actually turn her loose and not worry about her at this point. To teach her, I just took her out to an empty parking lot and had her practice all sorts of different situations. Overall, we probably did 10-15 lessons of about an hour each. I started off with her driving forward...she pretty much floored the pedal th first time and we took off until she hit the brakes and looked at me with these huge eyes. After that, she quickly got a feel for it. We then practiced steering by rocking back and forth from one parking space to another. I'd have her imagine that all the spaces around us were filled except for an open target space and have her either pull forward into it or back into it. Sometimes we'd just rock back and forth across the aisle working our way down all the spaces in the lot. That seemed to work pretty well. I'd also use the spaces for parallel parking, telling her which spaces had cars in them, and which she could drive in. She practiced that about 100 times until she had a good feel for when to turn the wheels and where the car would end up. I'd have her get out of the car and looking at the lines in the lot then to see how she did. Another good one for building control was just to have her drive in reverse for about 10-15 minutes. The parking lot had a few little islands so I'd tell her where I wanted her to go, telling her which one to circle, etc. She did have to take the actual driver's test a couple times before passing. First time, she didn't do well on parallel parking, so we practiced that a lot more. Second time, they had a little obstacle course set up and had some really weird railroad crossing set up (totally different from any of them in the driver's manual) and she didn't know exactly where to stop.

We only had one "Oh s$*%^ we're gonna die!" moment a couple weeks after she got her license. She was in a left turn lane at a light that didn't have a protected turn arrow, but the light was green and oncoming cars were about 30 seconds away. She came to a stop. I told her she had a green light so she could go. (oncoming cars then about 25 seconds away). I say Go! Go! She starts very slowly moving forward while moving slightly into the oncoming lane. (oncoming cars about 20 seconds away). I say GO! GO! GO! Hit the gas! Panicking or something, it's like everything I say to her has this huge delayed reaction...she hesitates a couple seconds then starts to accelerate. (oncoming cars now about 15 seconds away) She's still going too slow and it's going to be too close so I yell...too late! Stop! Stop! Stop! A couple more seconds go by with the car moving before she hits the brakes. We are now completely stopped...but directly in the middle of the oncoming lane. At this point I'm looking at the oncoming traffic and starting to see my life flash before my eyes. I start screaming! Oh s@#$!!!! Go! Go! Go! (oncoming cars all hit their brakes and honk their horns) She finally makes the turn and I spend the next couple minutes trying to calm her down since she's freaked out that I was yelling at her. Anyway, I'm happy to say she calmed down pretty quickly and we had a little discussion about how you have to decide quickly what you're going to do and do it. Luckily, we have never had another repeat incident since. Honestly, once was enough though.

[KGSodie 0]

I taught my wife to drive, and as soon as she got her license she wanted a GPS. She's pretty good at operating it and the car while using it. The worst thing she's done is to somehow reset 'home' on the GPS to some other address, then she called me because she couldn't find her way home. She's good at dead-reckoning within maybe a 5 mile radius of our house, but other than that she hasn't figured out the lay of the land.

Oh, and what's all this jibber-jabber about driving? Where's the pie? Where's the guns? What has the forum come to???

Hello again, everyone.

[KGSodie 0]

I have to say, my wife is a great driver. I can actually turn her loose and not worry about her at this point. To teach her, I just took her out to an empty parking lot and had her practice all sorts of different situations. Overall, we probably did 10-15 lessons of about an hour each. I started off with her driving forward...she pretty much floored the pedal th first time and we took off until she hit the brakes and looked at me with these huge eyes. After that, she quickly got a feel for it. We then practiced steering by rocking back and forth from one parking space to another. I'd have her imagine that all the spaces around us were filled except for an open target space and have her either pull forward into it or back into it. Sometimes we'd just rock back and forth across the aisle working our way down all the spaces in the lot. That seemed to work pretty well. I'd also use the spaces for parallel parking, telling her which spaces had cars in them, and which she could drive in. She practiced that about 100 times until she had a good feel for when to turn the wheels and where the car would end up. I'd have her get out of the car and looking at the lines in the lot then to see how she did. Another good one for building control was just to have her drive in reverse for about 10-15 minutes. The parking lot had a few little islands so I'd tell her where I wanted her to go, telling her which one to circle, etc. She did have to take the actual driver's test a couple times before passing. First time, she didn't do well on parallel parking, so we practiced that a lot more. Second time, they had a little obstacle course set up and had some really weird railroad crossing set up (totally different from any of them in the driver's manual) and she didn't know exactly where to stop.

We only had one "Oh s$*%^ we're gonna die!" moment a couple weeks after she got her license. She was in a left turn lane at a light that didn't have a protected turn arrow, but the light was green and oncoming cars were about 30 seconds away. She came to a stop. I told her she had a green light so she could go. (oncoming cars then about 25 seconds away). I say Go! Go! She starts very slowly moving forward while moving slightly into the oncoming lane. (oncoming cars about 20 seconds away). I say GO! GO! GO! Hit the gas! Panicking or something, it's like everything I say to her has this huge delayed reaction...she hesitates a couple seconds then starts to accelerate. (oncoming cars now about 15 seconds away) She's still going too slow and it's going to be too close so I yell...too late! Stop! Stop! Stop! A couple more seconds go by with the car moving before she hits the brakes. We are now completely stopped...but directly in the middle of the oncoming lane. At this point I'm looking at the oncoming traffic and starting to see my life flash before my eyes. I start screaming! Oh s@#$!!!! Go! Go! Go! (oncoming cars all hit their brakes and honk their horns) She finally makes the turn and I spend the next couple minutes trying to calm her down since she's freaked out that I was yelling at her. Anyway, I'm happy to say she calmed down pretty quickly and we had a little discussion about how you have to decide quickly what you're going to do and do it. Luckily, we have never had another repeat incident since. Honestly, once was enough though.

I had a similar experience, only in my wife's case (she didn't have her license yet) she decided that she had a green light, and the left-turn arrow (or a lack thereof) wasn't such a big deal, and started to turn into the oncoming traffic. I, um, raised my voice to a volume above a normal speaking level and politely, respectively asked her to stop. Thankfully, she did, or this conversation would probably need that Osment kid to facilitate.

[1HappyGuy 45]

Okay, I'm now officially scared to teach my wife to drive after hearing about those left turns.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

A perfect example of "I don't have trouble communicating with my wife because she speaks Russian... I have trouble communicating with her because she's a woman."

Exactly why I won't ride anywhere with my wife.

When she gets back... we're finally going to take it to the next level and she's going to learn to drive my stickshift Jeep. "What kind of foreigner can't drive a stick?" We've also been talking for several years about her learning to change a tire. I've never really worried about her needing to change one herself (she'll probably have no problems finding a man to change it for her) but I think she would like to know how to do it, and I'd feel a lot better knowing she could do it without "owing someone" for their services. Who knows. Maybe that slight bit of mechanical inclination and understanding will lend itself to other tough mechanical devices like combination locks. "Why zis stupid f'king lock AGAIN not open? Somesing AGAIN not work whis stupid lock. You must fix." That's funny, works just fine for me. "Because it's American lock. You American, baby. I not American. I am strong, indepensive Russian woman who so gorgeous and so wonderful and you must buy for me diamond." Just open the dang door.

Alla doesn't even put GAS in the car! No way she is going to change tires. She will just call me. She tried to drive my stick shift work truck, and we ended up in the ditch, in the grass and anywhere but on the road. Stick shift was not a problem except with my truck, she just had trouble with that. Too big maybe. she doesn't fix anything in the house either and prefers to be in a different hemisphere when I am doing work on the house. She does not like construction..."Just the result" as she says. Is she spoiled? Yes.

She is definitely the "owman" and does "womens work" and expects the man to do the "man's work", fixing things is man's work. She says "If I must things myself, then why do I need a man? I just need a tool box and a joystick"

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

I had a similar experience, only in my wife's case (she didn't have her license yet) she decided that she had a green light, and the left-turn arrow (or a lack thereof) wasn't such a big deal, and started to turn into the oncoming traffic. I, um, raised my voice to a volume above a normal speaking level and politely, respectively asked her to stop. Thankfully, she did, or this conversation would probably need that Osment kid to facilitate.

The left turn thing is common. I have had the same with all three. It goes like this...

They start to turn, I say "No, not yet you have to wait" "No wait" NO WAIT!" OK, NOW you can turn. Then...."Why do they always get to go first?" Or when I say "wait" they say "I can make it, I know I can!" ( I heard that one from the boys more than from Alla) But they get the hang of it.

Just be careful when you tell them to "move to the right lane" All three of them pulled that manuever in a way I thought would flip the van over It takes a while for them to realize that moving to the right lane is not like making a right turn! Actually I rode with Alla tonight in her car doing some errands and she actually is driving real well. It was the first time I think I rode while she drove in quite a while. Compared to the last few weeks of terror with the boys, it was downright soothing.

We went to get gas and she manuevered right around some trucks parked there to sneak up on the gas pump, backed up right to it. She handles her car real well now, but she also will not drive any other.

Edited August 14, 2010 by Gary and Alla

[slim 1,514]

To teach her, I just took her out to an empty parking lot and had her practice all sorts of different situations.

We did pretty much the same thing as you described by using the islands as a "road course" and then the parking spots and lines to simulate a full parking lot. I had her doing slow parking practice from spot to spot and slaloms through the light poles. Once she started enjoying it, she did a lot better. Enjoying it typically meant having me get out of the car, directing her to do some type of "test" and then she'd go do it. That was really fun, especially considering it was winter.

My wife also drives very well now and the reason I was "so hard on her" during practice was so I wouldn't have to worry about her now.

she called me because she couldn't find her way home. She's good at dead-reckoning within maybe a 5 mile radius of our house, but other than that she hasn't figured out the lay of the land.

Exactly why I'll never buy my wife a GPS. She's pretty good at finding her way around but I know for a fact as soon as there was a machine to be reliant upon, she'd stop noticing every single thing outside that window and only know what's on that little screen.

It drives me bonkers when people don't know where they are or can't find their way somewhere. It drives me absolutely crazy when they use their GPS to navigate... but still can't find it, especially when they end up "more lost" because their GPS had them going somewhere and they didn't pay attention to where they were going.

But... that's progress! That's America now!

Okay, I'm now officially scared to teach my wife to drive after hearing about those left turns.

I never once took a left turn with my wife before she had her license. Since, I've only taken a couple.

It's nothing to be scared of because really, she's going to be a safe driver and not place herself (or more correctly, her car) in harms way. It's only the fact that you're with her that's exacerbated the situation. She'd be fine without you.

Because of that, it's important if you're riding with her to give a direction "turn left at the intersection" and then STFU until she's all the way done. You won't, because none of us can stop that "oh sh!t" that comes out when our lives flash before our eyes... but you should!

Get your couch ready!

No way she is going to change tires. She will just call me

That's not an option for us. Plus, even though it's a "man thing" to do, I still like to think that she "could do it" if necessary. I know I can iron my own clothes and sew a button on if needed even though that's her department.

[slim 1,514]

Oh, and what's all this jibber-jabber about driving? Where's the pie? Where's the guns? What has the forum come to???

Hello again, everyone.

Good to have you back. Somehow I missed this quote and stuck to official business. What's wrong with me?

The forum has come to..... well.... we're pretty much the same group of fat old bald guys we once were, but we actually have more real issues now. We still do quite a bit of guns and pie talk, but mox has disappeared for a few months so our pie discussions are fewer and fewer by the day. We still talk guns but mostly on the OT forum now so we can battle it out with the bumblers over there.

Personally, I had a little bit of gun-related legal trouble back in April and was MIA from the forum for a while as I took the guided tour of our local county lock-up. I've since been sitting at home not doing a whole lot because of the unemployment that resulted from my little incident. The upside is I get to dedicate a lot more time to VJ and I'll be able to shoot again next year. I also get to see my wife a little more too. It's been nice to spend some time with her and not have to rush off to work. Although, I hope I can rush off to work again soon... I got bills to pay!

She applied for citizenship a few months ago (did the paperwork all by herself - and did a great job!) and had her interview about three weeks ago. We're still waiting on the update to see how that went. They told her she passed the test but they'd have to review the paperwork some more. Standard procedure. Uh.. OK.

Other than that, life is going on much like it was when you were around. How are things with you guys?