Our oldest son just turned 16 and wanted to start driving school in Panama. Normally the age for driving here is 18, but you can go to driving school, get extra insurance, and take the test as a 16 or 17 year old and get a temporary driving permit. We enrolled him in a local drivers school. He is required to drive with an instructor for 14 hours and has 9 hours of online defensive driving class.
The other day, I dropped him off at his class before the teacher was ready for him to drive, so I took a few pictures. The driving car is in pretty terrible shape. It's obvious some people who have driven it may not be the best drivers. Ha! The bumper is held on by screws, along with other parts of the car, and there are many dents and dings in the car!
I don't know what's going on with the hood. My son says that his lessons include going to a field and going back and forth learning to park about 5-7 times. He is told he can't turn his head or stick his head out of the window, or he will fail the test. The problem with this is that there is no rearview mirror, so he can only use the side mirrors to parallel park in between two cones. He said it's really hard, but if you touch the cones, you fail. And he's driving a standard.
After he practices parking a few times, the instructor has him start driving down the road. He drives about 45 minutes outside of town, turns around, and drives back. This is what he has done 3 times so far. He says the instructor is usually texting on his phone and doesn't have his own steering wheel or brake. Ha! He said today there was a large 18 wheeler coming the other direction on the road and the instructor told him to pull off the road and wait. It's a windy road and encountering a huge truck like that is no fun!
I'm so glad that he speaks good Spanish so he can understand what's going on, but it just sounds like such a circus. I can't wait to see how the online classes go tomorrow evening. My drivers ed class was also a joke, but it was because they moved me from one school that closed down to another one, and they didn't know what to do with me. I've been imagining times when my husband and I can ask him to run to the store instead of me having to go. Maybe I'll become a hermit, and he can run all my errands for me! Ha! I can't wait. 😉
How was drivers education for you?
