Learning To Drive In Cape Breton

Today many young people learn to drive while taking lessons from a teacher at school.The program is very successful and has financial perks when the courses are completed. In the olden days where there were no driving courses at school we learned to drive in the backyard.

It usually started when your father let you move the truck or car ahead and back a few times. Later we would lengthen the drive by starting the truck and actually moving it all the way up to the house or whatever. This was sometime around 10 or 11. On the farms young people drove horses when they could walk and tractors at an early age. My father had a coal hauling business and he allowed us to drive with him in the truck at age 14 or 15. Not alone until 16 but on country roads when going fishing he would give us a turn.

It was very informal and people like us could get a work permit from the RCMP for driving when needed at a young age. Dad never did get this permission but he monitered our driving skills and judged us accordinly.

I had a sister who bought two cars and never drove either one as she never had the proper training and had a few mishaps which instilled fear in her progress.I am sure now at a later time in life she is an excellent driver.Boys were seen as having an easier path to the freedom of driving and that was not fair. Today this does not exist.

I have to say that my father was a driver who drove for his job and never suffered a major accident that I know of. He had two sets of rules for driving. One was for him and the other was for all the rest.When driving with him as a young person he owned the roads in Sydney Mines. He also owned the stop signs and the one light that existed at the time. He used to say that he did not have to stop at signs and when he would be cautioned by the local police he would lecture them and tell them to go catch a criminal and leave seniors alone. It was convenient that the chief and others on the force knew him.

Dad is no longer driving and the town is a safer place for it but he was one of a kind when it came to driving. I hope I did not emulate his stop sign etiquette but I loved his free spirit on the road and we often talk of his driving skills and have a smile when we think of all the family he taught to drive.