The automobile hasn't just changed our society, it's changed us as individuals.
As children, we grow up in the back seat, imprisoned in boredom and forced to count power poles or wildlife as the hours crawl by on endless road trips to visit relatives we hardly know and like even less.
Are we there yet?
By the time we become teenagers, we see the power of automobiles and we can't wait to get behind the wheel ourselves. Driving is a rite of passage into adulthood. Our link to our parents and our innocent childhood isn't severed. Rather, it's run over with the roar of an engine and the squealing of tires.
For more than a few people, their first romantic kiss and other exploratory physical encounters happened in a vehicle, parked on a dark, secluded lane, inspiring Paradise by the Dashboard Light and countless other songs.
As we become adults and then parents and then grandparents, driving becomes second nature, something we can't imagine living without, particularly in northern towns like Prince George, where the people are few and the distances are great. As Megan Kuklis writes in her upcoming column on Tuesday, Prince George is a driving city, where almost every activity starts with keys and the twist of the ignition.
And then, one day, always sooner than expected so that it comes as a rude shock, we discover we shouldn't be behind the wheel. It might be age or illness or diminishing sight or the loss of a whole batch of skills we once took for granted that demands we give up the keys.
It's a traumatic moment.
Nothing expresses youth and vitality like stepping behind the wheel and pushing the right foot down.
Nothing displays independence like your own wheels.
When seniors can no longer drive, they are forced to make significant adjustments to their daily lives, as reporter Mark Nielsen explained in his story in Friday's Citizen. Getting groceries, going to appointments, visiting friends and family, taking part in community events and just getting away requires significant advance planning and a dependency on others.
So long, spontaneity.
For many seniors, this is an awkward transition as they see their lives come full circle, as they find themselves sentenced again into the back seat purgatory they thought they had escaped forever at the end of childhood. Once more, they are subject to the whims of the ones in front of them, the ones with the real power, their hands on the wheel and the road beckoning in front of them.
Some, like Prince George Council of Seniors manager Lola-Dawn Fennell, embrace the new adventures of public transportation and the observations that come with being a full-time pedestrian.
For others, not being able to drive strikes to our desire at the core of our individuality about not having to rely on others.
"It's a rude awakening to depend on somebody else to get to where you want to go," one senior told Nielsen.
Yet they grit their teeth and give up their licence, fearful that they will either humiliate themselves by making the news for mistaking the gas for the brake and driving the car into a store or worse, hurting themselves and others.
As Nielsen reported, BCAA once held workshops in Prince George to help senior drivers assess their abilities, to adapt to changes, such as only being able to drive during the day and to adjust to the lack of mobility that will come without being able to drive at all. The workshops were cancelled due to a lack of interest but it probably wasn't that, so much as it was something many local seniors deciding they would prefer to cope with in private.
Thankfully, BCAA made the adjustment and has now launched a website (seniorsdriving.caa.ca), so seniors can assess themselves and digest at their own pace the implications of life without the glorious freedom they once enjoyed.
"I wanted it to be my decision," said 92-year-old Beth Coates, who gave up driving for good last month. "I figured it was coming and I just felt it was time."
Hopefully we can all ease out of the driver's seat so gracefully when the time comes.
