Both Hands on the Wheel

  When you’re first learning to drive, you’re taught to hold your hands (as if the steering wheel were a clock) at 9 and 3, or 10 and 2. I’m sure there are people who argue the merits of one over the other, but those people are boring and need to date more. Nonetheless, it seems the prevailing mindset is to teach teenagers that having both hands gripped firmly on the wheel is best, preventing one from having a free hand for texting. No doubt it’s also because the “left hand only at 7” method of driving isn’t smart to teach to girls and boys who aren’t capable of making a right hand turn without crossing in to oncoming traffic. On the whole teenagers make horrible drivers. Then again most people aren’t good drivers until they’re 25 and forced to confront their own mortality for the first time.
  Like all things that high schoolers do, they believe they’re the best at it. Which is why they take stupid risks; driving with their knees or speeding 100 miles an hour on a four-lane divided highway. At some point you realize your mother is right and that it doesn’t matter how fast you get there if you get there in an ambulance. And it’s only 15 miles, so you’re shaving all of two minutes off your drive time. Better use that extra one-thirtieth of an hour wisely!
  Using both hands to drive seems so absurd. It’s not like your parents used both hands. More likely one hand rested on the ledge by the driver-side window, or held a cigarette as they blew second hand smoke into your face. I drove for three months while slightly leaning toward the driver-side door and woke every morning with hip pain for the next six months. It was at that point that I moved my seat a bit forward and started driving like I was eighty. I bet most people don’t drive with two hands because it just doesn’t look cool.
  Because isn’t that the point of driving? To look cool? That’s why we have sports cars, right? It’s the reason we love Steve McQueen. The chase scene in Bullitt is why he’s one of the coolest people of all time. When I took my driving test I had to parallel park keeping both hands on the wheel. Nobody does that! The proper way to parallel park is to put your right arm around the back of the passenger seat and palm the wheel as you back into the space. You’re not cool turning the wheel hand over hand.
  But really, who cares if you look cool while driving when nobody notices except you? That group of sexy sorority girls in the Ford Mustang convertible that you passed on the highway? You’re never going to see them again, so what does it matter what they think of you? Besides, you need to find action in spite of the fact that you drive a Honda Civic, not because of it. I'm comfortable driving two-handed. It feels right to me. After trying the 10 and 2, I recently switched to a 9 and 1. Well, more like a 9 and 12:50. Do I look cool driving with both hands on the wheel? I don’t think it matters.