Aggervated driver!

[Pagan]

My grandmother used to do stuff kind of like this. I picked her up at her house once and sat in the driveway for a couple of minutes until she asked me why I hadn't started my car. Well, she hadn't fastened her seat belt and one of my rules is that my car doesn't move unless everyone's belted up. Mainly 'cause I don't want a ticket. I told her that, and her brilliant answer was that she'd pay the ticket. That's when I told her it wasn't the money, I didn't want any points on my license. She wasn't a bit happy and started to argue. I just looked at her and said, "My car, my rules."

It sucks because if I don't listen, I can't drive and driving is one of those things I'd really rather not forget how to do. So as much as I hate the verbal abuse and forced shitty driving, I find it's a necessary evil in order to be able to drive at all.

As for forgetting how to drive...usually it comes back to you, and as patiokitty said, you can often take a refresher course (or have a friend help refresh your memory) to brush up on your skills. During my four years of undergrad before I got married, I only drove during the three months I was home from college in the summer, but it still came back to me. "Like riding a bicycle" and all that.

I find it's like riding a bicycle. Once you learn, you never really forget.

[ShadowBall]

I got another delightful piece of advice today:

Don't turn on your lights in fog because you'll forget to turn them off.

Yup...risk not being seen by someone because she feels I'm too dumb to know to turn the headlights off. Granted, the fog today wasn't bad and I saw a lot of people driving without lights on, but I feel more comfortable with them on in any conditions where visibility is reduced (this is not even touching on what my driver's manual says).

[RealUnimportant]

Next time she warns you about "agg-err-vated drivers", I'd be tempted to say that she's sitting next to one! She's not doing you any favours. As has been said, I'd rather give up the wheel than have to drive with that level of distraction.

Don't worry about forgetting how to drive, either. I've gone 3 years between driving stints before & I had no issues getting straight back behind the wheel. You can always take a refresher course too, or perhaps just ask friends every now and then if you can have a quick go in their car?

[EricKei]

Too bad you can't get your mother a safe driver's manual and highlight all the correct ways of driving.

Aye. Doing so would probably just make things worse, because she already KNOWS everything she needs to know about driving, and is, of course, always right. Being able to prove otherwise in black and white will just get you yelled at and make them intentionally get WORSE.

...Hm? Why no, I've never dealt with anyone like this before, why do you ask?

[ShadowBall]

I've known all my life that there are two different sets of rules in life: the normal ones, and my mother's. Sometimes one or two individual rules line up with the ones my mother makes up, but most of the time, she does things all wrong and tries to make people believe they're correct. But if you call her out on anything if it truly is wrong (even in her mind), she'll deny ever doing anything wrong.

It's a real barrel of laughs. Oh the fun I had when she used to do my homework for me. Not by my choice, but she felt I was too dumb to get through grade school and she did my homework for me until I was 14. If I did things in a way she didn't like, I got screamed at. If a teacher marked one of her brilliant answers wrong, that teacher got called every name in the book (not to his/her face...just at home). If I mixed cursive with printing, I got screamed at, had to have my writing whited out (or thrown away so I could write it again) and redo it. I could go on forever.

Now I see why so many people tell me I should write a book - I've got loads of stories I could share.

[lineswine]

Your mother needs professional help.