Schneid Remarks

My wife Jayne and I are within five weeks of having another licensed driver in the house.

Not quite sure how I feel about this.

"Oh boy - good luck," many of you are saying.

"Congratulations," Others are saying.

"Another driver on your insurance," others are reminding us.

"Good for you. Now you don't have to wait up for him when he comes home late from sports," others are probably saying.

"When you take a trip you can now take a nap while he is driving," others are saying.

All of these are very valid points in gearing up for Jayson getting his license. The last 10 months while he has had his permit has been trying and frustrating at points, but overall our "Little" boy has done a pretty good job driving. Sunday, however, was one of those days where the two sides didn't agree on what was happening behind the wheel.

Yours truly has been trying to lend his hand in helping Jayson drive correctly. This is a tough thing to do figuring I probably don't follow all the driving rules correctly. I don't like over analyzing things, but before he finally gets that coveted license, I want him to practice everything by the book. Hands at 10 and 2 or is it 9 and 3. Speed limit at 55 even though traffic flies by like we are standing still. Use your blinker even if you are turning on to Paquin Street in Waterville. Use your mirrors at all times, not just the back-up camera our GMC Terrain has. Sometimes I probably overreact to him not doing these things every time he drives.

We headed over to Mankato Sunday to have brunch with family and Jayson got the nod..."you are driving." Not a big deal, he has driven to Mankato a few times.

"Do we have to go through the roundabouts?" was his first question. We were heading down to Pub 500 where Jason Myers is a chef, so the roundabouts were not in play. Great meal by the way! I enjoy roundabouts, even though I don't agree with them. I just go and act like I own the turn. It has worked everytime so far. If you take your time they are fine. But having as many as they do in Mankato seems a bit of overkill. So we got that minor road block out of the way and off we went.

Jayson is a good driver, but like many new drivers the white line on the right side of the road gets driven over quite often. I have to say in the 25+ mile trip he never hit the line once, even though the highway was full of oncoming traffic. I was sitting in the front passenger seat and Jayne was in the back, so we had Jayson checked out from all angles.

I hate to analyze his driving, but I want him to be prepared for his test in June. And I know watching me drive isn't going to help him. My bad habits would give me a big fat "F" if I had to take the driving test today. Sometimes I go to fast. Sometimes I hit the white line while looking around. I don't keep my hands at the proper spots on the steering wheel. There are probably other things I do wrong, but those are enough for this discussion.

We headed west and immediately the cruise control was set. I glanced over, actually I peered across the vehicle, and the cruise was set at 61. OK, Jayne and I may reach these speeds on a consistent basis, but I told Jayson he needed to keep it closer to 55. I didn't want him to get a ticket before he actually got his "real" license. So the cruise went back down to a closer number and I was a bit relieved.

I watched the white line to the right and as I said before, he stayed within the lines. Thumbs up. We got to the 4-lane near Eagle Lake and the cruise was set again, at a manageable speed, and I was happy. For a minute... Oncoming traffic was merging on to the highway and someone didn't think they needed to take off the cruise control. UGH! This conversation didn't last long as some panic ensued with Jayson as six cars were heading onto Highway 14 all at once. He wanted to move left but he had cars on that side. Panic was full blown now. I just advised him they needed to merge in and if you can't move over you can't move over. He didn't agree with me, but after getting through two merges with just a little bit of yelling, we merged off on to Riverfront in Mankato.

This went well, our blood pressures subsided nicely, and we ventured the remainder of our trip at 35 miles per hour.

All-in-all I am glad we faced some of these emergencies along the way. It was nice to be able to "teach" my son the proper way to drive, even though he doesn't fully agree.

We made it to our destination, had a great meal, and upon paying the bill and walking out Jayson handed me the keys. "You can drive home dad," he said.

Oh well, at least he got us there without incident.

Maybe I was a bit hard on him, but he will thank me in the long run... I hope.