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Cars have always fascinated me. The revving of the engines and the feeling of speed through one's body as the vehicle moves fast is such an exhilarating feeling for me. As a kid, the sight of racing cars was always such a delight for me, particularly Formula 1 cars. It was then not surprising to me that I found driving to be a therapeutic experience when I finally learned to drive.


![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/olujay/244xsXPGh2mVdcdMHsAde2k2K1WRrYxHEtKwMx8MMvocH8uULEaFB3H4K3wq5KChZJHCF.png)


I mean, when I did start driving my parents' car all around and across town, that was when I started to understand how not-so-fun it is to drive every now and then, as fatigue tends to set in at some point when one drives for so long. Notwithstanding, I loved the experience of being behind the wheel and always looked forward to the next time I would drive.

With at least seven years of driving experience, I know with certainty that it is something that I love to do. Learning how to, however, was such an experience.

I had just graduated from secondary school, and I was going to have a lot of free time until I gained admission to the university. My parents thought to enrol me in a driving school to use the free time to learn how to drive, and that's how it all started.

What I had expected was to spend at least six months learning how to drive, but I was surprised to learn at the driving school that I would only be taught for two weeks during the weekdays. I wasn't sure how that was going to work, but I knew nothing after all and hoped to actually learn how to do it by the end of the programme.

I started with a manual-transmission car. I didn't even know how such a car really worked because my parents' cars have always had automatic transmissions. That was the beginning of my war with the clutch on manual cars.

Truly, a manual car should be called manual because there is such a long sequence of actions to drive it. Starting a manual car and getting it to move was always such a problematic thing, so much so that I had to piss my teacher off to eventually get the hang of it—because the vehicle kept going off in my hands.

Moving on, I would then complete the driving lessons and begin to drive my parents' car to continue learning—because that was really just the beginning of my learning. It was when my mother started to teach me how to drive a car in reverse that I knew that this mastery of driving was a whole lot more than I imagined, and six months was just child's play to become proficient.

Driving a car in reverse is not even the same thing as driving forward. They are like two parallel worlds that do not coincide and are opposite in direction. What I knew as left became right, and vice versa when driving in reverse. Thank God for the very large compound that I was privileged to spend a lot of days and weeks getting the hang of. Otherwise, I would have either landed the vehicle at the repair shop so many times or put so many cows in vet hospitals.

Eventually, and like any other thing that takes time to learn, I got the hang of driving in reverse soon enough. It's still not like driving forward, as it is done less frequently, but yeah, not that hard like the first few times.


![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/olujay/23xouaa658H4FDx1xpsq4awnF2mLBoNJRMbKzyfYaFJrtKHgSZM3oC7Y7cJeNi35G81XK.png)


Practice makes perfect, and the way I learned how to drive so quickly was because there was a reason for me to use the car every day. We lacked water in our house for a very long time, and so my brother and I had to take our empty kegs to fetch water somewhere a little far from home. We needed water every day, so I had to drive every day, and that was how I could improve each time I drove.

Fast forward to many years now, and I would rather take my own car and drive to wherever I need to than take public transport, and that is because I have come to love it—although my parents tell me that I would lean towards preferring public transport as I grow older.

I have only been in accidents twice. The first time was entirely not my fault, and the second time was also entirely not my fault. Yes, and for real, the two different commercial bike men were at fault on these two occasions. The first time was alright, as there were no casualties. The second time, however, was traumatic and left me with PTSD for a few days and weeks, and I couldn't hold the wheels to drive.

I have shared how the accident happened in two parts: [From Guitar Shopping to Hospital Bills: A Journey Gone Awry](https://peakd.com/hive-153850/@olujay/from-guitar-shopping-to-hospital-bills-a-journey-gone-awry) and [A Journey Gone Awry: Getting Arrested for Being in a Road Accident](https://peakd.com/hive-153850/@olujay/a-journey-gone-awry-getting-arrested-for-being-in-a-road-accident). But the general picture is that I was changing lanes, and then the careless bike man who wasn't supposed to be in any lane other than the first oversped and bumped into me. A woman was terribly injured, and I landed myself at a police station.

After the accident that scarred me for a few days, I recovered and was back on my feet again. Or should I say that I was back on my wheels again? Nah, I shouldn't, because I don't own a car yet.

I should own my own car, but then if wishes were horses, beggars would ride, and I would be driving a Tesla Plaid and bombarding this page with photos of it. Either way, I love to drive, and today's just about that. What's driving like for you?
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<sub><sub>Image [1](https://pixabay.com/photos/road-pavement-countryside-landscape-210913/), [2](https://pixabay.com/photos/car-road-tire-asphalt-vehicle-932455/)</sub></sub>