He said I was great at signaling ... so I guess I can boast about that, but it turns out that might be about all.

Recent letters to the editor have brought up a rift between younger and older drivers in Oceanside. The younger drivers are too fast, rude and impatient and the older drivers are slow and needlessly over cautious, holding people up and straining people’s patience, they accuse each other.

Once the personal attacks settle I’m sure we can agree holding a drivers license has nothing to do with contributions to society, or if we are a good or bad person, or if we once travelled to Peru for that matter.

When we are talking about operating a 5,000 pound metal machine on public streets at high velocities the only relevant factor is whether we do it safely and within the law.

You can’t earn a drivers license through respect or anything other than driving ability, so maybe we all need to relax, take a step back and look at our own driving habits.

While we continue to debate the merits of mandatory testing of senior drivers, we should all be aware of our own limitations and changing abilities.

There are a number of ways we can check our own abilities from online checklists to professional driving instructors.

Falling right in the middle of “younger” and “older” I headed out on the roads of Parksville with Grant McEwan, a professional driving instructor with 13 years experience teaching in the area with the Darnel Driving School which does senior driver refresher training.

As columnist Dave Barry once pointed out, everyone in the world believes they are a better than average driver, and since I am, in fact, a better than average driver I used a simulated driver’s exam (simulated in that if I failed it, I would not lose my license) to see where my skills are at and what I might need to work on.

Ten minutes into the 50- minute exam McEwan asked me to pull over.

“Since you’ve already failed a couple times would you like to know what you’re doing wrong?”

In my defense he did say I wasn’t doing anything dangerous, but I was breaking rules at every turn — literally, shoulder checking is evidently one of my weaknesses.

I slowed down in the school zone, but apparently they don’t just end somewhere after the school. The correct answer is that you have to watch for the back of the school zone sign on the other side of the road. Strange but true.

He said speeding up too soon in a school zone — an automatic fail — is probably the most common reason seniors fail driver’s exams.

I have driven a lot in the last two decades, including all day long for several jobs. I have received two traffic tickets and have never been in an accident (as a driver ... knock on wood). I’m a competent and confident driver, but I’m also aware there are things I can improve.

I don’t feel the need to confess all my weaknesses here — did I mention they were not particularly dangerous? Note: the proper hand position on a steering wheel is now 8 o’clock and 4 o’clock, due to air bags.

McEwan points out that it’s not just about our own changing abilities.

“Quite a few laws have changed just in the last 13 years... and ICBC doesn’t update the public when the laws change.”

He said he asks senior drivers if the roads have changed much in the time they have been driving and they say ‘oh yeah’ and tell him how dramatically, but they forget the rules can also change.

Another note: a legal stop is only complete when the weight of the car shifts back. I take issue with the term “rolling stop,” both because it’s an oxymoron and because I do technically stop. But again it turns out arguing doesn’t help you pass the exam. Neither does arguing more vigorously.

In the Tues., Oct. 13 edition:

Fear and

loathing on

the streets of

Oceanside.