New Driver

Pulling up to the light, I notice this bumper sticker on the car in front of me.

Bumper sticker asking for patience for new driver

This reminds me of another request for my patience: in that case, for a cashier-in-training. Whereas that request provoked irritation with Corporate America, this one provokes puzzlement.

I wonder how they want me to exhibit my patience with this New Driver. By not ramming the car?

Of course, maybe the intended communication isn’t a request for forbearance but, rather, a warning. Something more like this:

New-driver bumper sticker

Or, more accurately if also more alarmingly:

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But maybe they really are requesting patience — however exhibited — for someone new to driving. If so, then it’s worth noting that we’re all new to something. I myself am a relatively New Senior and an absolutely New (albeit senior) Knitter. I know New Marrieds, New Parents, New Babies, New Schoolkids, New Teenagers, New Employees, New Retirees, New Widows, New Manitobans, and New Users of Digital Cameras.

Maybe we could use one all-purpose bumper sticker or t-shirt motto.

Generic t-shirt or bumper sticker

 

 

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10 Responses to New Driver

  1. Marilyn Reynolds says:

    Yes maybe I need that sign. New to crutches/walker.

    • Isabel Gibson says:

      Marilyn – 🙂 It looks as if I could sell a few bumper stickers. Maybe a new business opportunity for me.

  2. I’ll take one of each for the “new” vehicle I get this week! Each applies perfectly to the situation I was in the last time we bought a small van. The first time I had it out, a driver on my right side drove into my new/used KIA because, as she claimed, “I didn’t see it.”

    The KIA was a shade of medium olive green, which I liked as a colour, but had a funny feeling about from the first sight of it. We were making a private purchase and my husband liked it, so I ignored the niggle. After the accident, I wondered if it was such a perfect colour match for foliage that the other woman driver “discounted” it in her peripheral vision. Having just turned left onto a boulevard, I was moving fairly slowly. She had just turned to her right into the lane next to me and was slightly behind me. In fact, I saw her from my peripheral vision as she came up on my right. I had neither time nor place to change my position as she turned deliberately into the passenger door.

    The other issue was that she was on her lunch break and poised to cross my lane and the oncoming lanes to access the service station convenience store that sold lottery tickets, for which she was the designated purchaser in her office pool.

    Come to think of it, I’ll take a second set to plaster on the sides of the new buggy.

    • Isabel Gibson says:

      Laurna – After driving a coral Volvo station-wagon for years, it was disconcerting when people pulled out in front of the small gray truck I was driving, just as if they hadn’t seen it. How much worse to have someone make contact. May you have better luck with the new wheels.

    • barbara carlson says:

      I think there should be another sign: Brand new car — do not ram!
      It happened to us by a Brand New Driver.

      An older woman friend bought a brand new car, drove it off the lot and was hit — she was OK, but the car was totaled. All that was left was the hood ornament. She was driven to her daughter’s workplace by the police. She said, “Young man, when you help me out of the police car, shake my hand so anybody watching will know I’m not a criminal.” He laughed and did so.

      • barbara carlson says:

        Another time, dear old Yolly was stopped by the police for speeding. She claimed it wasn’t her fault — it was “too strong gas!” She was old, little & Hungarian. Could talk her way out of everything.

      • Isabel Gibson says:

        Barbara – That’s insult added to injury – to have a totally new car totalled.

  3. wade says:

    Isabel, I have always wanted to take one of the older “STUDENT DRIVER” signs that they would use temporarily in a rear window package shelf and snip and tape it down to “STUNT DRIVER”. For my own vehicle of course.

    • Isabel Gibson says:

      Wade – Well, I can’t help you there, but there are t-shirts that say “Professional – Do not try this at home” which seems very like.

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