Do you remember learning how to drive?

We’ve all been there. Unless, of course, you’re under the age of sixteen, fifteen in some places. Nevertheless, you’ll be there soon enough.

There’s just something about getting behind the wheel of four thousand pounds, maybe more depending on the size of the vehicle, of hard metal while cruising down the interstate at 70 miles per hour.

Not only are you taking your life in your own hands, but you are also responsible for the safety of every single passenger in your desired mode of transportation along with you.

It’s enough to cause you to go into cardiac arrest.

As you put the horseless carriage into drive, your palms begin to sweat and beads of perspiration release from the pores across your furrowed brow.

When you put the pedal to the metal, you may also hear a rhythmic thumping in your head before you realize that’s your heart beating a million miles an hour.

Most newbies probably had a driver’s education teacher sitting next to them in the passenger’s seat the first time they got behind the wheel of a car; and they meandered through the city streets following simple directions.

However, I had the pleasure of being seated next to my father while roaming through the mountains of Somerset County, Pennsylvania. Needless to say, I had a death grip on the steering column with eyes as big as saucers.

I saw my life flash before my eyes; and thought I was going to have a coronary.

Sitting in the path of an 18-wheeler, I set frozen as my dad grabbed the steering wheel from my panicked grip to get us back on our own side of the road before we crashed into the tractor-trailer sending us both over the mountainside.

While I was learning how to drive, my dad made the mistake of taking me down a winding mountain before I understood what it meant to slow down going into a downhill curve.

When I turned sixteen during the summer of my junior year of high school while living in Ellwood City, Pennsylvania, I was nervous about getting my driver’s license due to what happened to my brother John when he got behind the wheel of a motor vehicle for the first time only a year earlier.

He was involved in two collisions, one for a moving violation and the other for a non-moving violation, so to speak.

My brother’s first accident took place on the main drag of town when he was driving through the underpass with the train tracks overhead. Not noticing the vehicle ahead of him had stopped, John rammed into its back end.

His other automobile mishap occurred while he was cruising through a quiet suburban neighborhood, the Ewing Park area, and hit a parked car while waving to Mister Rogers, one of our many high school teachers.

So needless to say, while all my friends were getting your learner’s permits and beginning to experience the joys which come along with the advantages of driving, I was content to keep my distance from the driver’s seat of the car.

However, after completing my first year of college, I finally took it upon myself to actively seek my driving privileges. I was nearly nineteen years old; so I figured I had waited long enough.

At the time, my family was living in a small mountaintop community – Central City – in the Appalachian Mountains of Somerset County, Pennsylvania at the western end of the state.

Since I was so strong-willed and set in my ways, my mom was not about to become involved in my new learning experience. So my dad reluctantly volunteered for the job with his vast knowledge of the law and driving expertise.

I had not been driving very long when he decided to take me down over the mountain from where we were living to the small town of Bedford, which was nestled in the valley, a short distance away to test my driving capabilities.

Big mistake!

I had not quite yet mastered the art of applying the brake when going down hills, or mountains for that matter, and around curves. I took them going at full speed.

I lost control of the wheel going into the first curve as we began our descent on the road which wrapped around the sizable mountain.

The velocity at which we were traveling while going into the turn caused the vehicle to veer from the right side of the road and into the path of an oncoming semi.

Before crashing the car headfirst into the large tractor trailer sending us both through the guardrail and plummeting over the mountain to the rocks below, my dad grabbed the steering column bringing us back to our side of the road.

That’s when I realized I had closed my eyes not wishing to view the potential carnage.

If my father had been my driver’s education teacher, I am certain I would have received a failing grade; and I would have most likely been barred from ever driving a motor vehicle.

Although we were not going to Bedford for any particular reason, other than for me to practice my driving skills, I’m certain my dad wanted to stop at the nearest hospital for the mini stroke he suffered as a result of our near death experience going down the side of the mountain.

Needless to say, he was the one behind the wheel on our return trip home; and come to think of it, I don’t think he has ever gone down the side of a mountain with me behind the wheel since that near fateful day.

Mark S. Price is a former city government/county education reporter for The Sampson Independent. He currently resides in Clinton.