MY FIRST CAR

      I bought my first car in about 1953 in partnership with my brother. It was a 1929 model A Ford. The car was in good condition as it had been driven very little. 

    Now here is where the story starts to sound like my motorcycle story. Neither one of us had a driver's license. The car did not have a license. We did not have insurance. And yet we merrily drove around with our car. The area was remote with few people and little traffic. We avoided driving into the village as it was rumored that there was a town cop in the village. So we drove the country roads with some of our friends.

    Today's weather brought back the memory of my car. Today we had lots of snow and wind. and it was minus 20 C. On a similar day about 71 years ago we decided to go for a drive. These cars did not have heaters. There was no anti freeze so we had to put water in the radiator and hope that the water didn't freeze. There was no snow plow. In the winter everybody put their car in the garage and used their horses for transportation. Only fools decided to use a car. 

   This didn't discourage us from going for a ride. We picked up 2 or 3 friends and made sure that we had some shovels and off we went. The first couple of snow banks we were able to plow through but finally we got stuck. So everybody out of the car and pushed. These cars were not very heavy. We got it out of that snow bank. We got stuck again and had to use shovels to get the car out of the snowbank. 

    Finally we turned around and went back home. I remember feeling exhausted after all the effort to get the car through the snowbanks. 

   Today I stayed in the house and kept warm. For that caper we were outside 3 or 4 hours and enjoyed ourselves. 

HOW MANY MISTAKES DOES IT TAKE ?

     My driver's license has come up for renewal. 

     Now here, private businesses look after driver's license renewal. They look after many more things like car license, registering of companies, land title services   just a lot of legal things that the government requires.

    Okay back to my driver's license. Here at a certain age , like eighty, you have to get a medical in order to get your driver's license..  The micro manager had to get on this right away. I would have waited but that's another debate. We went to the registry to get the form for a driver's license medical. Then hurry up and get an appointment for the said medical. 

    Okay it starts here. The receptionist threw my medical form away. She said it's all done electronically. Okay, I'll believe you. So for my examination the Doc gets the medical form on his computer , fills it out, and tells me to stop on the way out and sign it. Fine. They made a copy and gave me the original to take to the registry. Are you counting the mistakes yet.

   I get to the registry and they notice that there's nothing on my old license that said I wear glasses when I drive. So quickly over here to the eye tester machine. So you have a clerk giving you an eye test and not just measuring if you're 20/20. ..the colorblind test, depth perception! You have someone giving you a test that they don't know anything about.

   About that time I was thinking well how many mistakes have to be made before I don't get a license? What goes on with the system?

   The last time I renewed, my address was in another province!

    Well , I was given the standard paper interim license with the real one to follow in a bout 60 days. 

   Am I finished with mistakes yet? I hope so.

Birthday Present from My Government

    Now the title sounds very suspicious. What government, in their right mind, is going to go around giving people birthday presents? 

    On my next birthday I will be 75. Here , driver's licences are renewed every five years on your birthday. At age 75 , in this province, you must get a medical before they will issue you another licence. Now the medical is free! So there you have it. The province gave me a medical for my 75th birthday. I've already taken advantage of my gift and had my medical and will be going down to renew my licence shortly.

   Now the medical was cursory at best. I was given a basic eye test from the chart. My blood pressure was taken and a number of questions asked and check marks put in the appropriate box. That's all folks. I can now drive for another five years unless something incredibly severe happens.

   This last while I keep noticing poor drivers. I don't know whether drivers are getting worse or if I'm getting crankier. People seem to be doing really stupid things on a regular basis. This week I was at a red light on a one way street. The person on my left was stopped beside me. Then for some reason they just started to cross the intersection and proceed through the red light. I couldn't believe it. Twice this week I've had to come to a stop when some one is stopped and either lost or trying to find out where to go. People do not seem to have any ideas of the basic rules for driving. I could go on. 

   Maybe, the medical should be stricter and IQ's taken? Maybe a driver's written and road test should be done every year? Here it seems anybody and everybody gets a licence to drive no matter what.

   So as a senior I want to continue to drive, but I want to drive at a high skill level so that I'm safe and everybody else is safe.

   Are drivers getting worse or am I just being super critical?

    

Driver's License Renewal Blues

          I thought that I had witten a previous post on problems I had renewing my driver's license. I looked for it but could not find it. So guess what ? It's a post I thought I had written but didn't.
          To make a long story short when I went to renew my license this year, they asked if I had any health problems which would prevent me from driving. I replied, "Yes, as I had a TIA in 2008 which I described in a previous post Stroke of Luck. They put a "C" on my file which means that I would always have to have a medical to renew my license. I thought that this was extremely unfair and appealed the ruling and won. My point on the blog that didn't get written was that the Registries were inconsistant in applying the rules.
          This brings me to today's post.
          A friend of mine broke his hip in June. He had a number of setbacks in his recovery and returned to the hospital. Time passed and his driver's license came up for renewal. He went to another registry and stood in line in his walker. One of the clerks came over and took him out of the line up and to her desk. She asked him what he wanted. He stated he wanted to renew his driver's license She asked the standard question. Have you had any health problems which would prevent you from driving? His response was , "Not really." He was then issued a renewal for his license.
       They then asked where he was  parked . He told them he was in the handicapped parking stall. They then opened a back door so that he could have an easier time to get to his vehicle.
        So the point of my post is that the system is very inconsistant and so some people are unfairly treated.