“There are all young people here…”
Katerina K., 69 years old

When I started driving, I never once said “what did you want…”. I sat behind the wheel and said to myself: “Well done, Katerina, well done for doing this!” Three or four months ago, my husband “left”. It’s sudden, very difficult to handle. My children grew up, they left home, I was left alone. All my life I got used to being driven, I was afraid of cars. At first, my best friend Tasia would come home, take me to the movies and shoot me. My sister was doing chores that needed to be done, but my kids started pushing me, “Mom, where is this going? It doesn’t work that way.” I agreed to start driving lessons on one condition: if I don’t like something, if I’m stressed out, I won’t continue.

I never felt comfortable when my husband and I had to drive long distances, I made sure to put someone else in the passenger seat, I wanted to drive back, I thought that a car coming from the oncoming traffic would crash into us. When I first got behind the wheel, my fears disappeared. I think driving has become more comfortable for me. I had to survive and I said:

“Here you have lost your man, you will live alone, isn’t that what you are going to do?” Everyone cheered me up, cheered me up. My sons saved the book for me to learn the signals. “Mom, you understand perfectly well, come on,” they told me. At the end of the first lesson, I grabbed the teacher Stefanos and told him: “Listen, my boy, I want honesty from you. If you see that I am not pulling, you will tell me, you and I do not punish each other. The only one who was negative at first was my older sister Niobe. She has been driving since she was 20, I admired her. He told me: “You will be tortured, and you will not succeed, you will be scared, you will be disappointed and give up. It’s not easy at this age.”

Theoretically, I was the only one who passed my group without a single mistake. I had never sat at the computer before, I had additional stress, everything was new for me. When we went to the exam, the teacher prepared me. “Don’t listen to anything, everyone will be small, you are your goal, you are my star, let them talk…”. At first I hesitated: “What business am I doing here,” I thought. “These are all young people.” But then I was stubborn, let everyone think what they want.

There was no car. When my husband died, I sold him. When I started classes, my eldest son – maybe so I wouldn’t back down – would come and pick me up so I could do some market research. When we saw something that suited us, out of habit I went to my old place. I opened the back door and got ready to get in. “Where are you going, mom? Come and see if it suits you,” he called to me. “I want to see if there is room for my girlfriends,” I apologized. I didn’t realize it, I didn’t imagine it, and certainly not younger.

When my kids were little we lived in Chalandri, everything was close, schools, tutoring centers, the market, everything was within walking distance. Later, studies came, we did not have the financial comfort to maintain a second car, but most of all I was held back, of course, by what I was afraid of. And this Giannis never encouraged me to take bold action. He loved to drive a car, he liked to feel that the car was something exclusively for him, he was also flattered by my dependence on him. Of course, you think about it later, when you climb the route alone for the first time and feel such confidence and freedom. You beat yourself up for letting the years go by, for making life difficult for yourself.

When I was supposed to pick up the car, my son came up, picked me up from home and took me to a car dealership. Then I’ll have to go back alone. It’s a short distance, I muttered, I won’t have a problem. We pulled up to my house, my son parked behind me, came up, sat in the passenger seat and said: “Don’t park, let’s go to Glyfada and buy me a drink!”. A few days later I went to Anavyssos, then crossed Attiki Odos to Penteli, went down to the center of Athens with my girlfriends. When the time came, I also installed a seat to carry my granddaughter. My friends, when they see a girl, they say to her: “Your grandmother is a doll, do you know that?”. This is my nickname because I eat mileage and maneuver.

“I gripped the pen furiously”
Aliki K., 31 years old

When the accident happened, I had already been driving for two or three years. I had my own little car that took me to work, to friends, everywhere, breathlessly, but successfully. I was not afraid for a second while driving, the car for me meant independence and adventure. I was a passenger that night and was driven home by a friend from a group we were drinking with. I saw a red light, he didn’t. I instinctively and desperately pressed on the non-existent brake. He does not know. The fact that no one died in this accident is due to an unimaginable game of chance, and what followed in subsequent years did not happen immediately and not consciously.

At first I made excuses. I can’t park, I want to sleep, I’m bored driving. When we walked, my then partner was driving, and when I was driving somewhere alone, I preferred to ride the bus twice an hour. I paid embarrassing amounts in overnight taxis as long as I had a car. And as a passenger, when at a traffic light the car approached the vehicle in front, I violently grabbed the handle.

At some point, it became official: to the question “Do you drive a car?” the answer was “once yes, now no.” So the years passed. I gave the car, and the capital was closed. My beloved grandfather languished: “Let me ride you again, it’s a shame.” Again excuses: yes, I’ll go, okay, I didn’t forget to drive, it will happen again. Until grandpa died. His car, an Opel Astra, which he took care of like a child, was left an orphan. In the meantime, I got divorced and there was no one else to pick me up and drop me off. Every summer on Kitira, resenting that I couldn’t get home from the beach, I promised myself that next year I would go down.

Once in the winter I put it on stubbornly. I studied at a driving school on my grandfather’s Opel. “Yes, hi, I want to be independent again.” Anxiety tore me apart along with incomprehension: my friends rode as easily as they cooked or walked the dog, with such a lack of fear. They were fearless and I was incompetent around me. Come on, it’s a habit, they said. For them it was a habit, but for me it was a huge mental process that is still going on. When I finally drove from Athens to Kythira one summer, I felt more proud than ever, more independent and more of a superhero.

“I Got Reverse Angle”
Marilena P., 40 years old

I decided to get my driver’s license at the age of twenty-nine after moving from Pagrati to Paleo Faliro, which increased the distance. So I entered a driving school, passed my grades with honors. However, I had driving problems. It took me a long time to coordinate my hands with the steering wheel and gears, my feet with the brake and gas. However, I did not want to resort to “oiling”. I wanted to get a diploma with my value, to be sure that when I went out into the street, no one would fall on my neck.

I worked out the prescribed hours of practical training and went to read the “course”. I remember the heat, it was July, and the advice I heard around me: “drink a cap of retsina to relax”, “be careful with the back angle”. The back corner was the only thing I wasn’t afraid of – my teacher was impressed that although I usually didn’t do well, I nailed the back corner the first time. So, we get into the car, two examiners sit in the back. “Let’s start?” makes me one. “Yes,” I say. Are you sure you checked? insisted. He carefully pulled the door behind him, leaving it open, and the corresponding light blinked on the dial. So he defiantly opens the door, forces it to close, and tells me, “Now that the door is closed, we can begin.” His “wit” was my first mistake. We start up the hill. At one point, they left a trash can near the parked cars. My teacher got behind the wheel so I wouldn’t “shave” him. Second mistake. Rejection reason? Causing an accident.

I tried again in September. I took the lessons again, the teacher and I went out to Voula, I comfortably shifted into another gear, we ran along the deserted beach. I was sure that this time I would succeed. I don’t remember the first mistake I made, but the second one was a back angle. The third and last time I gave it away on October 1, 2010, the day before my birthday, and while I was in the office joking: “Where are you taking the exam, let’s pick up the trash cans?”. I took so many courses that I gave the school twice the cost of the degree itself. Even oil would be cheaper for me. But it was a matter of the beginning, I remained faithful to the end. I got it with the third one.