Did you have any incidents learning to drive?
As many of you know I just passed the first of 2 road tests here in BC and can now drive alone. I'm trying to get practice in before my camping trip. The roads here in Vancouver can be pretty hectic, lots of very very busy intersections, impatient ass holes, you get the picture. When I first started out driving in a different car I had 2 small accidents one my fault the other not. Since then I have been very careful and have driven quite well. I still have oops moments though, went through the beginning of a red light today due to being stuck behind someone and having a ton of other things going on, didn't see the light had changed when I pulled out 
I'm trying to be very careful but it's annoying to have ass holes trying to push you to do dangerous things when you aren't as confident yet. I don't give in but it's still dangerous.
When you were learning to drive did you encounter any issues. Any accidents? Scraped your car? How long till you were confident?
I'm assuming you were learning on relatively busy roads in a larger city. Those learning to drive out in the booneys don't have many issues to face.
Looking forward to my camping trip. Though that's a 5 hour drive out of the city and once I'm on highways it's much easier. The practice driving I'm doing now on busy city roads is actually much more demanding in some ways.
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vehicle.
That was fun... 
Yeah that would indeed be a lot of fun 
Counter intuitive too. Closest I've come is driving a tank in a tank sim game, the controls hurt my brain.
I had to parallel park behind the examiner's personal car. In a snowstorm. No pressure there! 
I made it. 
With the perspective of hindsight, that has to be one of the worst jobs there is. Think about it - going for rides with nervous and inexperienced strangers one after the other all day long. 
I am a Third Party examiner for CDL drivers. We get tested by a State Examiner every couple of years (this is being tested on our skills as Drive Test Examiners, like the person who tested you, except for Commercial Vehicles).
The State guy told us he would MUCH rather go out with us while we did a drive test for one of our recently tested employees, because at least we all know what we are doing when we drive.
He said it was the scariest part of his job, to have to go out with an examiner who was testing applicants for a regular drivers license.
It's faster and easier to roll up it and back down off it then it is to parallel park my Jeep. (Which I could do, if I wanted to. 
)
More power to her that she didn't screech or cringe once, LOL. I wouldn't have gotten my license without her help, since she was the only one who would take me driving. And I passed my test on the first try, which my mother said was unheard of, since it took my brother six tries. 
Years of dreading something so simple.
or braking - which taught me that lawns are reasonably good surfaces for driving on... 
My dad took me and two friends out to practice some on the road driving, me driving, my dad in the passenger and two of my friends in the back. Following my dads directions, I found myself merging onto the Garden State Parkway and who would guess... Fuckin other people were using the highway... I still managed to cut off two cars before my friends started objecting... Fortunately, dear old dad was there 
He turned and said "Relax, he was born with right of way... It's the legacy I'm leaving my kids"... He even did it with a straight face
I'm often still asked to drive 'Just so we don't have to stop or get anyone in our way'
LOL such an odd thing out of left field haha.
when I was still in my first year of driving, I got impatient one afternoon when I was driving to my job. I tried to pass a lady on the right, but got too close and just barely scraped the side of her car.
Fortunately, all it left was a small paint mark. She was very nice about it, refused to take my insurance information, and said her husband could remove the paint mark with no problem.
Whew. That was so kind of her...and I felt sooooooooooo embarrassed. 
My judgement has long since improved, thank heavens.
Good luck gaining experience, and I hope you have a HUGE amount of fun on your camping trip.
One hint: most people are lucky when they first learn to drive, because they are still nervous enough to be careful. There is a bump in the accident rate @ 4 years of driving, because by then people have become a little too comfortable with their driving skills, and the result is they get careless.
If you continue to drive cautiously and make an effort to obey the traffic laws, you will come out far ahead of other drivers who take risks. My observation is that most folks who make risky moves in traffic really don't have the high skill level that they think they do...and the results can be deadly.
Again, good luck, and have a wonderful time on your camping trip. 
6 years of cautious unlicensed defensive driving taught me well .
You really never "borrowed " cars before you got your license ?
My family is nice but not nearly as easy going as this. My mother worries about every little detail down to the smallest piddling little thing, and my father is over protective. Would have been refreshing to have parents and or siblings like that. Though I'm sure they got you into some trouble at times
I WAS the trouble!
I am the youngest and the black sheep. 
I never did get comfortable with driving, and I'm still not very. I have visual-spatial deficits, which means:
~I can't gauge how close/far away the car beside me is.
~I can't gauge how close/far away the car in front of me is, or calculate the necessary stopping distance
~I can't gauge how close/far away I am from the edge of the road (or cliff or wall), or exactly where I am within the lines
In heavy traffic this can eventually cause me to panic and have to pull off the road.
Learning to ride a motorcycle has been a real joy sometimes 
but worth the trouble.
I've learned workarounds. But I'll let you drive anyway.
Does that mean you have the annoying green N sticker on your car? That's why they're targeting you.
Though I took a driver's ed course in high school (where I got the highest mark and won a whopping $25), my father also taught me. I was far ahead of my peers because of that. I grew up in the Toronto area, and he had me driving on the 401 in rush hour regularly while I still had my 365. He also had me driving some of the Trans Canada (again, before I got my actual license) on the drive from T.O. to Alberta and back. I remember getting caught in a horrendous rainstorm in rural Saskatchewan - even with the fastest setting on the windshield wipers, I still couldn't see. It was a narrow farm road with deep ditches on either side, about 3/4 hr from our destination. He told me that I'm going to have to face this at some point in my driving life, might as well be then since he was in the car with me and could help me out if need be. It was a white knuckle drive, but I got there.
It helped me become a very confident driver, and I've been in so many conditions in my (gack!) 30 yrs of driving. Heavy rain, blizzards, whiteouts, windstorms, dust storms, driving for 8 months of the year on ice...
There are a lot of assholes on the highways, too. I have a particular fondness for the ones in pickup trucks. 
Practice practice practice. Nice to hear you had so much experience early on it helps a lot. I took a defensive driving course too, but it wasn't all that helpful. The class time was a fucking joke, the pretty girl who taught me was a distraction City driving is what I need to be doing as much of as possible to practice, that's where all the hazards are. And I mean busy intersections. Highway driving is much easier IMHO I've done more highway than city at this point.
Yes pickup trucks. Why are they ALL ass holes, or so it seems. 1/2 of them roar past you leaving you in their dust to make a purposeful point. The other 1/2 tail gate you dangerously. Saw a guy today who almost lost it in a pickup cause the car in front of him wouldn't close the small gap in front of him fast enough. He proceeded to tail gate the fuck out of everyone for kilometers.
there are definitely two things that will be eliminated: pickup trucks and power tools (I'll include lawn mowers and leaf blowers in there, too). Poverty will be one as well, but I'm referring to machines at this point.
Try the Coqihalla in January and then get back to me how easy highway driving is. lol (from experience ...no snow tires either). Do not attempt that unless you are a very confident driver!
Lots of highway driving is fine, depending on which ones you're using, and what time of year. I've never had any problems on #1 coming from, or going to, Vancouver, except in February, in the crazy downpours. Dumbasses want to commute home quicker, the rain is creating dangerous coniditions and asshat still think it's summertime and 25. A few misses there.
If you're living in the city, that should definitely be your first priority in terms of learning. The frickin' road closures messed me up last time I was there.
