Too Many Roundabouts

I believe myself to be one of the most expensively educated drivers in Scotland. I have had dozens of hours of driving tuition, most of it expert. All of it has been harrowing, and although I was arguably a rich source of income for my driving instructor, I know that he did not find teaching me an easy source of money. I am willing to bet that while he mourned the loss of the steady income I provided, he breathed a deeper sigh of relief than my own when I finally took my test and passed it.

Having an L sticker on our car permanently got to be pretty embarrassing. People who hadn’t actually observed me driving assumed that our eldest – who looks older than she really is – was the learner, and at one point I thought to myself that we might as well just leave it on the car for her. I started driving lessons when she was twelve and proudly peeled off that sticker just after her 15^th birthday.

One of the reasons it took me so long to get a driver’s license is that I refused to listen to the wisdom of the ages (and all my women friends) and allowed my husband to give me my very first lessons. This was certainly as traumatic for him as it was for me, and it put us both off the idea of getting me licensed for quite a few months. But there is another reason: I  am a stubborn and narrow-minded greenie who will do just about anything within reason to save fossil fuels. So even though I come from California, where not having a driver’s license is like not having running water, all these years I have resisted learning how to drive. Perhaps I like doing things the hard way, but I am a great believer in using public transport. I also believe in using your own steam to get you places. All my life I have walked, cycled, and taken buses, trains, trams and subways. I walked to work in New York City, San Francisco, and Las Vegas. When I lived in Tokyo and Yokohama, I commuted by bus, train and subway, and in Sendai, my bicycle and I were inseparable.

When we moved to an isolated little town in Scotland, however, I was forced to admit that driving was probably not just a useful skill, but an indispensable one. I made it plain to my family that even if I did pass my test that did not mean that I would ferry everyone places they could just as easily walk to. After this face-saving gesture, I booked myself into a series of lessons. I figured I’d have it sussed in a couple of months, tops.

The first inkling I had that learning to drive might take a lot longer was on my second lesson, when I was told to turn right at the roundabout. The problem was, I did. Turn right, that is. By this, I do not mean that I turned left onto the roundabout and then exited via the right exit, but rather that I executed a right turn into the roundabout, eliciting my instructor's screams and quick use of the dual control steering.  In my own defense, we don’t have that many roundabouts in America, and even if we did, I certainly wouldn’t have paid attention to them. And directions have always been a problem for me; I can remember getting lost on my way home from kindergarten, which was only a block away from our house. As a child, before shaking hands with people I often had to do a quick mental check of which hand I would use to write my name with. I have since gotten over my early dyslexia, but roundabouts helped me revisit it. My driving instructor quickly learned to issue clear, slowly enunciated instructions to me:  Turn left onto this next roundabout, then take the third exit.’

I had lesson after lesson after lesson. We went out in spring, when all the beautiful gardens were a terrible distraction for me, in the full Scottish summer heat, in vibrant autumn and chilly winter. I drove on icy streets, through snow, and over flooded country lanes. We idled on rural roads waiting for herds of cattle to pass and sheep to get out of the way and went out at night when there were deer, badgers, and foxes on the road. And there is one particular corner in Dumfries that really should be named after me considering the amount of time I spent there – and the fact that I first successfully backed around its curve. But still I was not ready to pass my test. Roundabouts – that’s what was holding me up. Roundabouts.  After every lesson, I would return home with shaking knees and badly frayed nerves. God knows how my instructor felt, but I’ll bet he went through a fair amount of gin after his lessons with me.

All I had to do was see a roundabout up ahead – or that telltale roundabout sign – for my heart to be filled with terror and my pulse to start racing. When to enter? When to exit?  Which way to look? It is now no big deal, but back then, roundabouts made every driving a lesson a misery.

At some point my driving instructor decided that I ought to take my road test in Lanark and not Dumfries due to the fact that there were fewer roundabouts in Lanark. This sounded good to me, even though Lanark is further away. We had tentatively decided to go for Lanark, when one day on the way there I was confused to hear my instructor say that the good thing about Lanark was that it had too many roundabouts.

Having spent two hours a week with my instructor for the better part of three years,  I flattered myself that I could understand his toned-down Glaswegian dialect pretty well. But when he told me that all I had to worry about in Lanark was too many roundabouts, I suddenly felt as though we were back to square one. I had been doing so well up until then, both with my driving and my understanding of his spoken directions, that I hardly dared question him about this. But after further mentions, I finally had to ask. 

‘I thought that we were going to Lanark because there weren’t so many roundabouts there,’ I said. He concurred with this:  quite right, so we were. ‘But you just said that there are a lot of them there.’  My instructor gave me a suspicious sidelong look. ‘I never said that.’

I sucked my breath in and started all over again. ‘You did, though, you said so just now.’ Long awkward silence. ‘What I said was that in Lanark there aren’t very many roundabouts at all. That’s why we’re going there and not Dumfries.’

We drove along in sullen silence for a few moments, and I reflected that from the way we were quarreling, my instructor and I might as well be married and if that were the case, no wonder I was starting to regress. ‘Look,’ he said a little shortly, ‘there are too many roundabouts in Lanark, and when we get there, I’m going to have you go over them as many times as possible until you’ve got them sussed. Okay?’

‘You just said it again!  You said that there are too many roundabouts in Lanark!’ This was followed by a brief silence, then a bark of laughter.  ‘Two,’ as in one-two-three!  And mini as in mini and maxi!    Two mini roundabouts!’