26/7/02

Off the Roads, and Into the Classroom

Israelis are going to teach ME how to drive? You gotta be kidding!

I got an official-looking letter in the mail. I have a lot of experience with this sort of thing, so I opened it with eager anticipation. Most people would not be so excited, so perhaps I should explain.

The last time I got a letter from our governing authorities, I opened it with dread anticipation. But it was only 109 shekels I had to pay, which is not too bad. I don't read every word of these bills, because there's always a deadline date, and I read Hebrew slowly. So I went right to the post office and gave the teller 109 shekels, and he promptly gave it back, together with another 109.

Whoa, there! This had never happened to me before. This wasn't a bill, it was a check! As best as I could understand, I was once getting a stipend from the Left Handed Journalists Association, or something, and the paperwork wasn't worth the gruschim I was earning, so they wanted to settle up. Or my investment in Saudi oil finally kicked in. I really wasn't sure.

I have no idea who owes me what, but I do know that I've been overpaying all my life, so I'm expecting millions back. That explains my eager anticipation.

This time, though, it wasn't a check, or a bill. It was an insult. It was an "invitation" to learn how to drive properly.

Me!

I wasn't so sure it wasn't a mistake. My ex-wife's ex-car was registered in my name, so I always got her automotive mail. It happened yet again only a couple of days before I got this invitation, so I figured, aha!

Something tipped me off that this wasn't for her. The list of transgressions showed two counts of speeding, and I park faster than she drives. One thing I can't accuse her of is speeding.

I will admit that I drive rather apace. In the same breath, before Zelda Harris of Metuna calls to yell at me, I will also admit that I have an unblemished, accident-free, superlatively safe 29-year driving record.

If I had been nailed driving really fast, I'd go sheepishly to the course without a word of indignation. But -- and read this part carefully, before you dash off a shirty letter saying I shoulda been thrown in jail -- one transgression was for "driving 21-30 km above the limit," and the second, "up to 20 km above the limit," both times on a major six-lane road. That's all they pinned on me in the last two years. In this country, that should get me a commendation and a handshake from the transport minister.

For that, I need a 12-hour course on how to drive?

The worst of it is, I had to submit to learning from Israeli drivers.

It's so humiliating: only recently I wrote a column about my antipathy for those accursed student drivers. And now I are one. Grrr.

I shouldn't feel bad, a friend told me: she was forced to take the safe-driving course and she doesn't even own a car. Now she knows what it's like to be an innocent Palestinian arrested in a roundup of terrorist suspects.

For 10 of those 12 hours I learned about the right of way (I don't know about the other two hours, because I fell asleep). That would be acceptable if I had been caught 10 times failing to give the right of way. But I was a (tsk, tsk) speeder, like almost everyone else in the course. What does this tell me? That we were not being educated, we were being PUNISHED.

I can't say I made any new friends from this course. Not untypical was Dudu, a thick-necked, thin-skinned truck driver you don't want to unhinge. He seemed perfectly capable of the worst kind of road rage, based on what we saw of his classroom rage. It's alarming to imagine this chap driving anything larger than a tricycle.

Actually, Dudu provided the biggest laugh during those 12 dreary hours: the instructor was describing the profile of that elusive careful driver, and Dudu bellowed: "He's careful? Then he's a woman!"

I dunno, maybe we laughed because we had to. Nobody was going to point out to him that he was technically incorrect based on the fact that eight of our class of 45 were women. (Dudu, if you're reading this -- oh, never mind.)

Dudu had a coterie of like-minded minions in the class. They have a class reunion every few months. Some of these chumps have endured this punishment up to six times. Maybe the best thing I can say about the correct-driving course is that it keeps them off the roads for 12 hours.

It wasn't just boring, it was irritating. Early on, the instructor -- whose name was either Yitzhak Cohen or Ya'acov Cohen, I forget which (does it really matter?) -- said something really facile: "When you come to a stop sign, what do you do?" Everyone eagerly offered the answer: "STO-O-O-OP!" The teacher beamed. It was like I was back in pre-nursery. (Now that I think of it, maybe they were calling for him to stop treating them like morons.) Throughout the course, it occurred again and again. I couldn't believe it.

"Before you cross an intersection, what should you do?"

"Look both ways!"

"And?"

"Be careful!"

"Very good!"

Everyone tried to be the first one with the correct answer, and no one wanted to be left out, so there was zeal in their responses. I watched them in disbelief -- and for all I know, maybe they were watching me right back in disbelief, suspecting that either I didn't know the answers or I was refusing to join in. Or wondering if I actually understood anything (I gave them every reason to think that; and sure enough, one fellow, perhaps elected by the others to find out, asked me how long I'd been in the country.)

I can't say the course didn't have any effect on me. For several days after it ended, my driving became noticeably slower. The threat of another 12 hours of tortuous brain-draining was enough of a deterrence.

IRONICALLY, I can be grateful for this stupid course: it probably saved me from disaster.

I wasn't even aware that I was paying attention -- much of the time, I was surreptitiously catching up on my reading -- but something must have sunk in. Soon after I finished with Cohen and his coneheads, I was driving on a rainy night. Approaching a sharp bend, I noticed a "road works ahead" sign, and I suddenly recalled something the instructor said that made sense at this particular moment. I wasn't driving fast, but I slowed down -- and right at the curve, I came upon a large patch of mud where a convoy of dump trucks had been entering the road from the sidelines. My car careened on the rain-slicked mud. Sharp driving intuitions kept the car under control, but only because I had slackened my speed -- thanks to that remnant of Professor Cohen's voice in my brain.

Awright, awright, so those 12 hours wasn't a waste of time after all.