A lapsed driver dares to get behind the wheel
Food writer Karon Liu learns how to get on the road again after a decade-long interval
“I’m sorry if I perpetuate the stereotype,” I say to my driving instructor as I put on my seatbelt. “I’m also sorry if we die.”
“I’ve been doing this for 30 years,” he tells me. “If you find a new way to kill me, I’d be impressed.”
I haven’t driven in 10 years, mostly because I’m still a bit shaken from the time I hit a parked car (no one got hurt) while practising my driving skills at 17. I can still feel the jerk of the seatbelt when my front bumper hit. I also remember, in vivid slowmotion, the cringed expression on the face of a bystander, who watched as I drove into the car.
I actually became a fairly competent driver but even after passing my G road test at 19, I tended to stick to the passenger side or opt for public transportation. I’ve probably taken every bus in the TTC system.
Initially I didn’t need to drive. I lived on the subway line and went to Ryerson University, just steps from Dundas station. After graduating, my parents coddled me, offering a ride to wherever I needed to go.
But recently, after my boyfriend took a day off work to drive me to Huron County for an assignment — a six-hour return trip — I decided it was time to get back behind the wheel.
My job as a food writer requires finding hidden-gem restaurants across the GTA and beyond, as well as visiting farms. I was getting tired of long public transit rides (waking up at 5 a.m. to catch a GO train to Hamilton for example) and feeling guilty asking friends and family for a ride.
So on this overcast and humid Wednesday afternoon, I’m zigzagging at a snail’s pace between pylons at the Advanced Driving Centre’s newly built simulated four-way roadway in northern Markham (a grand opening for the whole facility is slated for September). A herd of cows graze nearby.
My instructor, Angelo DiCicco, general manager of Young Drivers of Canada, sits in the passenger seat. He’s teaching me about accelerating and braking and urging me to go above 30 km/h. His voice is calm and reassuring, like a motivational tape set to ocean waves.
The five-year-old, four-hectare centre is a series of paved roads and intersections that provides drivers with a safe place to practise advanced skills, including winter driving and sharing the road with cyclists.
“Sometimes it’s easier to mitigate risky driving situations with a mature driver,” DiCicco says. “They have more experience as a pedestri- an and a passenger,” he says. “They now believe in death.”
It’s not just driver safety that he’s concerned about when it comes to the roads. In 2015, 39 pedestrians and four cyclists were killed in Toronto.
While I still have a valid driver’s licence (I neglected to tell DiCicco I renew it primarily to buy booze), I fear I could end up contributing to those statistics if I get behind the wheel without a refresher course.
“The dangerous part of driving isn’t the students — they want to be great drivers — the danger is other drivers who cut people off or run a yellow light. We’re trying to get back to the golden rule of treating others how you want to be treated. Keep enough space for your brother or sister driver so they have room to screw up and fix it so we can all move on.”
People often find the name of the driving company, Young Drivers of Canada, embarrassing.
It’s a bit of a misnomer these days, DiCicco tells me. “In the last six years, the average age of people learning to drive at our Bloor St. and Avenue Rd. location went up from the typical 16 and 17 to between 18 and 25. I’m still helping 65, 75, 85year-olds. You’re probably not aware how many people are in the same situation as you are.”
Road users don’t get retested once they hit the road, he says, inferring that having a licence doesn’t mean a driver will have the same driving skills that got them through their test decades before.
However, I am aware that I lost a lot of the road skills I learned at 19. I want DiCicco to help me get back my confidence behind the wheel.
“My job is to find that burning ember of desire and fan those flames,” he says.
He appeals to my love of food, asking me which restaurant I’d love to revisit. I tell him about Edulis, the lauded tasting menu restaurant in Toronto’s downtown King West area. He sets the scene.
“From Markham, it’ll take 35 minutes by car, depending on traffic. But how would you get there normally? You can call an Uber, which exists because of people like you, but I doubt there are any Uber cars around us now. You’ll have to walk five kilometres to get on the York Regional Transit, transfer at Richmond Hill and head south on the Via bus before getting to Finch station and taking the subway down to King and then take the streetcar. You know what? You’ve missed your reservation.”
His eyes light up as he lays out a more convenient scenario — driving.
“You can move the reservation earlier because you’re not tied to when the streetcar gets there. They have a tasting menu? Maybe you’ll go two days in a row and have a different meal. You then drop off your date and get home in time for bed.” After circling and swerving around the practice course for an hour, DiCicco suggests I hit the actual road. It’s a country road with few cars so nearly impossible to hit anything. I get a sense of driver freedom zipping along a two-kilometre stretch.
Free of bus and train schedules and the guilt of bumming rides. I wasn’t just back on the road, I thought to myself, I was a guy with a new-found sense of independence and self-worth.
“You’re going 80 in a 60 zone,” DiCicco says, bringing me back to reality.
Perhaps I should take this newfound freedom in smaller doses.
I’m scheduling a few more lessons. Next week: Reporter Andrea Gordon takes a lesson in artisanal bread making after years of procrastination and worrying that the dough won’t rise.