May the Road Rise Up to Meet You

After we moved to Dunfanaghy last November, I stopped updating this blog because I spent the winter writing something that left me no juice for anything else.

When I finished the project, I would have updated the blog with stories of a snowy winter, turf fires, and hot port. But in late winter something else took all my time and attention.

I had to get an Irish Driving License, and it kicked my ass.

Driving Lessons were so awful it took me all summer to finish writing this post about it.

It wasn't what you think. The driving-on-the-other-side-of-the-road-thing became natural after about a month. By last October I'd mastered the Kinsale roundabout in Cork, Dublin's O'Connell Street at rush hour, tolls on the M50, and maniac bike riders on the Ring of Kerry.

Mastery isn't enough. The rule in Ireland is that you can drive on your US license for a year, but after that, the insurance company checks to see if you have a "Full Irish Driving License." To get this license, you need to pass a theory test (€45) with only five wrong answers out of forty. It's much harder than the California test:

What should the driver do?

Some road signs are a little different:

I studied the Irish Driving Manual, called Rules of the Road, passed the theory test, and did the paperwork to get a Learner Permit. (€35)

With my Learner Permit, it was time to contact James, the driving instructor in Dunfanaghy. All the lessons take place 30km away in the big town of Letterkenny, but I wanted the local fella.  That was the right instinct because he told me the secret spots in the village where I could practice my Left Reverse. (More on that later.) Twelve hour-long lessons are required before you can take the driver test (€85). I'm lucky because James only charges €480 instead of the €600 like everyone else.

I knew I had bad habits and looked forward to unlearning them. What I didn't know is that now that I'm old, I never do anything I'm not already good at.

Because I'm so clever and such a good driver, I scheduled two lessons together at first, knowing I could finish this formality in a little more than a month.

The first two-hour lesson left me catatonic. Artemis had to feed me a sandwich and drive me home.

Here are my mistakes James took note of:

I approached the Glencar roundabout too fast. I was not confident enough as I entered the Polestar roundabout.

I did not make one final “look left” as I entered the Station roundabout.

Amber pedestrian lights. If it is green, but turning amber just as I approach, I must stop.

I failed to pull up the handbrake when I was first at a pedestrian crossing.

Crossed my hands when turning. Keep hands at 3 and 9.

Too close to the car in front when stopped at light. Make sure you can see the rear tyres of the car in front of you. Mnemonic: "Tyres and Tar."

"Do not beckon" to pedestrians. You will be at fault if the pedestrian believes you and gets hit.

Hill start: I have an automatic transmission car, but on a hill it fell back just a few inches before moving forward; that's an instant fail. Always use the handbrake on a hill.

Turnabout. Failed to take proper observations.

I didn't signal on approach to the roundabout when taking the first exit. Even if the first exit is straight across and you're not making a turn out of it, you must signal.

When passing parked cars on a narrow road, don't cross the center line without signaling 4 seconds ahead of time. Take care you don't send an ambiguous signal either. Signal "in good time."

Pedestrian lines at an intersection are different than the stop line.

Insufficient reaction to roadworks. I should have noticed the temporary signal sooner and done a full right shoulder (check blind spot) before moving out and around the hazard.

I didn't signal as I exited the mini-roundabout.

I didn't look back along the car before I opened the door in the parking lot.

If the windows fog up while you're testing, that's a secondary-controls fault.

If someone is indicating in front of you to change lanes, you must let them in. If you want to change lanes, it's ok to just stop in the lane and block traffic because the next car must let you in.

"How long has it been since it stopped raining?" James asked me. If you let your wipers run too long after the rain stops, they will fault you because it wears them out. In Ireland it starts and stops raining six times in an hour. Who notices that?

One day when I drove to LFK to practice, I made 4 faults before I got to the Hospital roundabout.

The left reverse: This maneuver is backing up and making a turn around the corner on the passenger side. The Left Reverse kicked my ass the hardest and I still can't do it. It's harder than parallel parking, but more useful. Out at the end of some lonely lane, with mountain on one side and a cliff in front of you and no guard rail, that’s when you notice that everyone else has Left Reversed their way home.

I would have given up if it wasn't legally required. I was bad at driving, I could only handle one lesson a week, and I drove to LFK two or three times a week to practice. My progress was slow. But after around Lesson 6, I learned something not found in Rules of the Road.

James was always asking theory questions as I drove around breaking laws and endangering passersby. "What is the speed limit here?" "When is it permitted to use full headlights?" "What is the definition of a hazard?"

Then he asked a question which taught me how to understand Ireland.

"What regulates your speed?"

I knew the answer wasn't as obvious as "the brakes."

"The engine, transmission, and brakes?"

"Your stopping distance."

James gestured to the country road in front of us, not much wider than a Californian single-car driveway.

"As the road closes down on the left curve, slow down. You don't know what could be there. As the road opens up on the right curve, you can increase your progress."

The road is closing down and opening.

The road is moving.

The road is alive.

That country road near Letterkenny is at least 500 years older than any car, perhaps thousands of years old. Where I learned to drive in California, the roads were set down on a real estate map and scraped into the earth specifically for cars to drive on. When I learned to drive, I was told to keep up with the traffic while we drove on the street and maintained speed on the freeway. Keeping in the permanent lines of your lane was most of what you needed to know about driving.

Visitors to Ireland often comment how a tiny lane with grass growing down the middle has an 80km speed limit, and how people will stop their cars in the middle and chat to each other, or how a tractor holds up a dozen cars through a mountain pass. Like everything I love about Ireland, the roads are human scale, create by and for humans and their human tasks like going to a wake or taking butter to market.

The roads are not a physical manifestation an automobile's civil rights like in California. The roads are an active participant in every village, opening and closing, rising and falling.

Now James's instruction about roundabouts made sense. James gestured to the mad circle of traffic ahead of us. "Where is the gap developing, and can you join it as it moves around? What is the story that's developing there?"

The only story I was taught in California is "Everyone's drunk and I'm invisible."

As I understand the deeper qualities of Ireland, I understand what people mean when they say California has a car culture. I lived in it so never saw it. If you want to learn a culture, learn how the drive.

My last lessons with James were "mock tests." I failed every one, in multiple ways. I scheduled the official Driving Test anyway. The next slot is available in December. I hope I can pass it before the devil knows I'm still living, practicing my Left Reverse and taking observations at every rising road.