e New Yorkers are in love with our city in ways outsiders couldn’t possibly comprehend. We pride ourselves on our magnificent skyline, our top-notch taxi drivers, our roasted nuts on every corner, our beautiful foliage that is strategically contained in parks and 5’ by 5’ boxes on the sidewalk, and our subway system that changes routes every other weekend. That’s an important one, actually. The subway. It’s perfect, really. Lots of colors and numbers and letters and directions and entrances and rules… it’s got to be a tourist’s hell, but to us, it’s a work of art. You know that warm, yummy, nostalgic feeling you get whenever you come home after a long time away? I get that on New York subways. From the shiny bright 6 line, to the dingy smelly 2, I love it all. Except for the shuttle – I hate the goddamn shuttle. It goes one stop, from Times Square to Grand Central Station, back and forth, over and over. I really hate that thing; I will take a longer trip to get across town on a different line if only to avoid the shuttle.
Anyway, since we have such a wondrous wonderland of subways (and buses and taxis and rickshaws – who doesn’t love to watch those guys peddle down 5th Avenue with overjoyed bourgeoisie in the backseat cracking jokes about slave labor?) we tend to rely on our public transportation quite a bit to get around. Which leaves us lacking in one – only one – area: Driving. I’m sure many New Yorkers my age would read this with defiance, as they are long-time licensed drivers, but I’m talking about the vast majority of New Yorkers my age who I’ve spoken to, myself included, (yes, I speak to myself) who have simply found it unnecessary thus far to go through the hassle of learning how to drive. Sure, we’ve all got those learner’s permits you get immediately upon turning 16 so you can drive around Riverdale and Long Island with your parents, but most of us have never taken that leap to full-fledged license-hood. There’s been no need – we’ve had public transportation at our side, we left for college in a different state a few years ago, and driving in Manhattan appears to be a job for the pros anyway.
I’ve been to the other side, as well. My dad lives in Great Neck, the ultimate Jewish suburb of New York, where driving is a rite of passage. I remember in high school when people starting coming of driving age, and all my Great Neck friends would immediately get their licenses, while all of my Manhattan friends would…do nothing. My boyfriend at the time was from Great Neck too, and I remember driving around with him and feeling like I was the coolest person on earth because I knew someone my age who could drive. The first time I got in the car with him I was sure I was going to die of a stop sign down the throat since he seemed to think that certain stop signs meant “slow down a bit,” but that’s besides the point. He could drive, and that’s all that mattered. We could go anywhere – I mean, we never actually left Long Island, but still, we could’ve. But the Great Neckers had a need for driving. Their town had no subways – the only other ways to get around were walking (heaven forbid) or taxis, which you had to call. (I hate calling taxis. It just rubs me the wrong way. Taxis are meant to be hailed, not called. Once you call, you become a big spender. When you hail, you can act like you’re in a huge hurry, there’s no possible way you can get to where you need to be in time if you take the subway, and you know it’s expensive but there’s just no other way, damnit, now take Third Avenue because it’s faster this time of day! Sorry, I get into that New York state of mind sometimes.) So I can understand why they drove, and why we Manhattanites shied away from the wheel. But it seems no one else can understand my position.
Anytime the subject comes up that I don’t have my license, I get the same reactions. People are either shocked, amused, or downright angry. The shocked ones are from rural areas, where driving means freedom, and a license is how you define your independence. They simply cannot comprehend why I didn’t spend my 17th birthday in line at the DMV. The amused ones are from suburbia, and they just think it’s funny that I’m so stuck in my proud Manhattan ways, and that I’m just so damn lazy to boot. And the angry ones – they’re the feminists, and the friends who want you to drive them somewhere. The feminists are those girls who don’t know that they’re feminists, but they respond by saying something like “What, are you just gonna have whatever guy you’re with drive you around the rest of your life?” And the friends, well, they need someone to park the car or sit in the driver’s seat while they run into the store, neither of which I can help with. Of course, there are the adult responses: “What about when you leave New York?” Leave New York? What? I don’t understand. This does not compute. “What about when you have kids and you have to drive them to things?” My husband can drive them – shut up, feminists. “What about taking road trips?” Actually, that one sounds valid to me. I want to take a road trip this summer up the west coast, and while my boyfriend knows how to drive just fine, I feel like it might be fun to take on some of the work myself. Then again, I’m not sure if a brand new license would be enough for me to drive on 6-lane freeways.
My driving friends all tell me that they have some kind of nostalgia for their cars and their experiences behind the wheel. I can relate to that a bit with my subway nostalgia, but they tell me it’s more than that. Their cars are where their adolescences happened, where they made out with their girlfriends, where they pep-talked themselves before a test at school, where they ran away from life once in a while. One friend of mine described it: “My friend was bad at driving and would always fuck up his stick shift and it smelled weird, and that smell reminds me of my ex-girlfriend because he was dating her friend so we’d always go hang out with them together…and like little things like that.” While I’m not sure I want to think about what “fucking up his stick shift” and his stick shift smelling bad have to do with one another, I can get the gist of his comment. I can relate to all that, too, since I did have the Great Neck experience, and I definitely feel like a lot of life revolved around the car – getting to Dunkin Donuts at midnight, “hanging out” in a parking lot for a couple of hours before a movie started, picking up friends on the way to a party and then having to leave the car there and take a cab home…I’ve done all that, and I get it. But I guess the Manhattan life is different, and while we miss out on those kinds of all-American memories, we’ve got some pretty good ones of our own – they just involve late-night walks and cab rides instead, which can be pretty exciting in their own right, I must say.
Despite my love for the subway, my hatred for the DMV, and my New York pride, I know that my arguments are less than valid at this point. Summer is fast approaching, and I have a feeling that this time, I might actually go the distance. To be honest, I’m pretty scared of driving. Well, I’m scared of crashing, not driving. But I’m tired of the comments and the ridicule; I’m ready to learn and pass that test with flying colors. Of course, if I fail it, I probably won’t try again for another five years or so. But that’ll be a whole different article to write.
