So last week I finally got around to getting the defensive driving class scheduled that had to be taken because of the ticket I had gotten in February. I was going to take the class more locally, but the added bonus of the class being $20 cheaper and 2 hours shorter, plus hopefully being able to see my uncle and grandfather made it an easy decision. Once I had figured all of this out, I called the BR Courthouse to get signed up for the class. The lady on the phone told me the next Saturday class was in July, so I told her that wouldn’t be good because I needed to have the class taken by the end of June. Then she said she’d be able to fit me in the class the next day (this past Saturday). Why didn’t she just do that the first time? I was finally signed up and the lady told me I had to be on time, because if I was late, they’d not let me in the room. I was fine with this rule, because you’re taking a class so the ticket doesn’t get reported to your insurance, so I’ll be there on time. She also told me I could not wear shorts, which I thought was strange.

I woke up early on Saturday morning and set off for BR at 6:15. I made it down to the courthouse and found a parking spot. There was a crowd outside the courthouse waiting for the doors to open about 7:45. I could tell a lot of the people in the crowd were courtroom regulars. I had to go back to my car to leave my cell phone since they weren’t even letting people bring them in the building. I found the courtroom where the class was going to be held through the help of a fellow classmate. The teacher called everyone’s name and we had to go up to the front to sign in. There were probably 40-60 people in the courtroom, and it wasn’t even full! The teacher basically read out of a binder and played videos, so he started reading out of the binder after everyone signed in. About 8:20 or so, two people came in late. One lady wasn’t in the right room, she was apparently wandering around looking for a certain class. The other lady was late, but the teacher let her sign in and join the class. What about the rule about being on time??? This kind of bothered me. Also bothering me was the lady who came in from a break late (the breaks were 15 minutes, and there was NOWHERE TO GO!) with a water bottle (the teacher said at the beginning don’t bring food or drinks into the courtroom). The teacher said “Ma’am, you can’t bring that water into the courtroom.” Her response was “Huh?” So then he said “You’re going to have to go outside and throw it away.” She did it begrudgingly, but really, is it that hard to follow a couple of rules for a few hours?

The class itself wasn’t that bad. The teacher was funny enough to keep boring driving rules interesting. The videos he showed were pretty good. Of course there were videos with people pretending to be horrible drivers not caring about seat belts, or easily driven to road rage. Stupid quotes about not having to wear seatbelts or whatever that were obviously supposed to be actors made you sad that there are actually people like that. The road rage video had some funny parts. The mention of a drivers’ ed teacher in NC who was with a student, ordered the student to chase down some guy that cut them off. And then the video where one guy driving a white Caravan got pulled out in front of by a Taurus. Instead of just dealing, he follows the guy and pulls up behind him in his driveway. He just happens to have an aluminum bat with him between the seats, so he pulls that out and approaches the Taurus. Unfortunately he didn’t see the guy in the Taurus was pulling out a gun. Oops! Also, the teacher told us when going over RR Crossing info that some lady in Louisiana had recently crashed into the 42nd car of a train. FORTY SECOND! The train was basically passing and she didn’t even stop. She survived though and told the officers at the scene “It just came out of nowhere.” (shakes head)

We all had to take a 20 question test at the end which was really easy. I told the guy next to me before we graded our neighbor’s that if anyone failed, they should have their license taken. You could miss 6 questions and still pass! Everyone passed and we got our certificates and I was out of there around 11:30. Unfortunately I didn’t get to see my uncle or my grandfather. I had called my uncle twice during the week and left VMs, but didn’t hear anything back. I called my grandfather as I was leaving the class in hopes I could talk to him, but had to leave a VM. I hope the non returned calls were just oversights, and I’m not on the “Never talk to again” list. I ended up driving home way earlier than I thought with a heavy heart. :(