Driving is a part of life for many of us. And to drive, we must go through the driver’s license exam, of course. There’s the book test and then the driving exam itself.
We thought about this recently because a friend took her driver’s license exam at age 23. She had no need to drive before. She lives in a large city with ample public transportation. When she commutes back to her rural home, she always takes the bus. It is simple and convenient.
But she decided to take the driver’s exam, just to have the license. Right now, she won’t buy a car, but maybe in the future she will have one.
The whole driver-licensing process makes us smile. We know someone who, many years ago, took three tries to pass the in-car driver’s exam. This young man went on to become quite a driver, and a safe one, too.
But in his first year of driving, he had a very poor driving record. In fact, he nearly lost his driver’s license because of speeding tickets. He also had one very minor accident as a young driver, and he hit a deer the year afterward.
Other than that, his driving record is accident-free. It has been many years since he received a speeding ticket or a traffic citation of any kind.
And this driver sometimes drives 50,000-plus miles (over 80,000 km) each year, as he commutes around North America to create multimedia content. He is a long-distance driver, sometimes driving many hours, by himself, in a given day.
His personal record is for 1,070 miles (1,722 km) driven by himself in a calendar day—when he commuted from southern Utah to central Nebraska on a cross-country road trip.
This road trip happened a quarter-century after it took him three tries to become a licensed driver.
Our point is, early results don’t always predict future results. The guy who couldn’t even pass his driver’s exam as a teenager became a very safe and serious driver in adulthood.
There is a broad lesson here. We shouldn’t prejudge anyone—because we all grow as people, and we all have a lot of potential.
This is true in driving, and this is true in life itself.
Drive on!