“I know,” was Jay’s response. Well, he’s the teacher, I thought. So I went for it. Thanks to some form of divine intervention, traffic was relatively light at that moment and the merge onto the highway was manageable.

“Just go with the traffic,” was Jay’s professional advice. So I switched into the middle lane and followed the car in front of me. After barely five minutes, I glanced at my odometer and realized that I was speeding. I informed Jay, to which he responded, “Well you don’t have to do 70.” Okay.

The next hurdle arrived when a cab tried to cut me off. Jay told me to floor it. “Never give in to the ‘Yellow Daemons!’” he yelled. I sensed a hint of latent road rage in my externally placid driving instructor.

Jay informed me that we would be spending Lesson Two driving from lower Manhattan to the Bronx and back. The Bronx? I laughed. He wasn’t kidding.

But I survived. And I actually had a good time. I learned that accelerating as opposed to braking on a curve can actually make the ride smoother, and my lane changes are getting better all the time.

I have a few lessons left before my road test—which is scheduled for August 20th, in case you’d like to put in a good word for me with the Road Test Gods—and I can only imagine what Jay has left in store for me.

But I’m slowly beginning to realize that maybe this seemingly unwarranted faith that Jay has in my driving abilities is a good thing. I am actually becoming a confident driver, and the thought of me driving a car doesn’t seem so ridiculous anymore.

If nothing else, Jay has taught me to trust my own instincts, a lesson which is perhaps as true as can be to the coming-of-age tradition of learning to drive.

Kate L. Rakoczy ’04, a Crimson editor, is a social studies concentrator in Lowell House. When she’s not terrorizing the streets of Manhattan, she works for a non-profit organization that conducts research and publishes reports on American labor.