When I got my South Carolina driver’s license it seems I was about 14 years old. There were no provisional steps to get a license, no driver education classes as exist today; you simply appeared, took the test, paid a fee and got the license. How you learned to drive was highly unstructured. If you had a brother who had a license, he became your teacher otherwise you basically winged it. Too, if you grew up on the farm, there were plenty of opportunities to drive but not necessarily an automobile.
Getting that coveted license was, as they say, the most important rite of passage for a teenager then and now. It gave the holder instant status and certifiable bragging rights. Of course way back then, in the 1940s, no young person even thought of owning a car; “his” car was also the family car and only available on a limited basis. Too, the use of the car was a way for parents to bargain with the young driver for example, you only got to use the car if you did so and so such as making good grades on the report card.
One important thing about having a driver’s license is that it gives you immediate independence. As a licensed driver, try to recall what it would be like NOT to have a license to drive. You are no longer the master of your daily agenda; you must depend on someone else to serve your destination needs. Unless you are indeed fortunate, chances are that your schedule becomes secondary to the schedule of someone else, an all- too- frequent occurrence.
One thing worse than not having a driver’s license or having a suspended one is no longer having the necessary skills to operate a motor vehicle safely because of a variety of reasons such as physical limitations, at which time someone may deem that you will hence forth sit in the passenger seat of the automobile.
It’s even more difficult when the driver fails to realize his or her failings and offers resistance to a drive-no-more decision made by a third party, friends or family members.
My parent was one of the fortunate ones. The day he accidentally made an improper turn and hit a highway sign was the day he signed off as a driver. He realized it was no longer safe for him or other motorists he might encounter for him to operate a vehicle so from then on, he had a friend to drive for him.
Sadly this is not always the happy scenario we would wish to happen because some veteran drivers do not go quietly into the motoring sunset willingly.
I assume there are logical steps that are generally followed when there is a need for a driver to be grounded. In one case I know about, a medical doctor wrote a related letter, the SCHD official was contacted and an officer appeared to require the surrender of the motorist’s driver’s license and in this instance without incident. It was sadly one of the “last” rites.
The preacher was introducing a new church member and in his remarks stated that the new congregant was fortunate to live nearby because he could no longer drive. The speaker was interrupted with the statement that it was not that he could no longer drive; It was that he no longer had a license to drive. There is a big difference.
I am reminded of an old gospel song that pretty well fits this situation: “You gotta walk that lonesome valley, and you gotta walk, walk it by yourself
Nobody else can walk it for you.
You gotta walk, walk it by yourself.”
Especially if you have no driver’s license.
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Bill Lee, PO Box 128, Hamer, SC 29547
