Facts About A Road Trip: 700 Miles in the Slow Lane with an Ipod

[gytterberg]

Being a relatively recently licensed driver and one who learns by doing I decided to rent a car to drive to Philly rather than bus it. The idea was to get some quality alone time with a stereo, prove something (minor) to myself, and get some of the easy car related mistakes out of the way. I have bad driving genes in my family and a lot of time

Comments

[manintheboat]

Get AAA.
I have a version of AAA through my cell phone carrier (AT&T) that is $2 a month and they will tow you, spring your keys, bring you gas, change your tire, etc. for free (actually $24 a year, but using it once every 4 years covers it totally).

[randomdreams]

Wow! What a disaster. I'm sorry. How on earth did they manage to justify a 400% increase?

And don't worry: you still do dumb things even when you've been driving forever. I've been driving for 25 years and a couple months ago I managed to drive off with the gas station hose still in the tank.

[gytterberg]

Taxes and fees, but mostly insurance. I fully expected the total to be 2, maybe 300% of the "base rate" but was surprised.

And it was still fun. I'm actually kind of serious about getting mistakes out of the way - I'm terrible at not screwing something up in the first place, but I usually only screw it up once.

[skazat]

I think you've nailed everything I did when I first started driving at 21, except, maybe, driving continuously without a license and driving without a license with my Mother, who had a broken neck and stopping, then driving through a red, because I couldn't figure out if it was red or green because of the sun (I swear)

Having a license and not owning a car is great, because when you do drive, you fill up the tank and get the person coffee when you give the car back and they always tell you, you can borrow the car again, any time you want.