Don't crash the hire car
Struggling with a rental car's quirks reminds me that learning is a humbling journey at any age.
I’m sitting in an unfamiliar car with my foot glued to the brake pedal, dashboard beeping angrily at me as cars whiz past. I try—for the third time—to put the vehicle into reverse, moving the gearstick to the clearly-indicated “R” position. I gingerly take my foot off the brake again, and the car inches forward, even closer to the parked vehicle in front. I swear in frustration.
You join me as I collect a courtesy car while mine is being repaired (many thanks to my friend of last year who reversed his van into it while it was parked). The hire place took so long to supply me with the keys to the car, and all of the communication from the disinterested young employee has been so vague, unclear and rushed, that I dismissed him with an “I’ll figure it out” as he tried to explain how the automatic handbrake worked. I am now somewhat regretting my choices.
My own car is a decade old, and it’s cheerfully basic. I’ve barely driven another vehicle since learning to drive in 2019, and I’ve just been handed the keys to a brand-new car with less than 5000 miles on the clock. In fact, even the keys are alien and new: there’s no ignition and the key fob sits in my pocket. Why am I still inserting my key into a lock like some kind of peasant?
This lack of familiarity with modern cars means I don’t understand how the automatic handbrake works (turns out there’s a tiny paddle somewhere in the central dash which manually activates it) and because I can’t stop the car from moving, I can’t go back into the car hire place to ask how to put it in reverse. I could Google it, but knowing my luck, a police car will immediately pass by, notice my lawbreaking, and arrest me.
Unable to reverse the car and turn it to face the direction of traffic, I realise I’m going to have to merge from the wrong side of the road—across a busy arterial route—before I run out of road as the car continues to slowly approach the parked Citroen in front. I see a gap in traffic, put the car in first gear, indicate hopefully and start to pull out.
The car groans and then yells at me in pain as I realise belatedly that this obviously isn’t first gear. Other cars have had to stop to allow me to move out far more slowly than any normal merge, and I can hear the engine continuing to growl as I think “fuck it, might as well keep going now” and merge into the lane in third gear from a standing start. I fervently hope that nobody from the car hire place is watching me do this.
One hair-raising ride around the block as I get a feel for the handling and controls, and I manage to pull up near my house and attempt to park the vehicle once more. I eventually find the handbrake and am able to step, trembling, out of the huge SUV I never wanted to find myself driving in the first place. I quickly pull out my phone and start googling “hyundai tucson how to reverse”. It turns out you have to pull a little toggle on the gearstick up before you can put it in reverse, unlike my suddenly-basic-seeming Honda Civic. Lesson learned.
Old dog, old tricks
Learning new things is hard, especially when you’re pushing 40. It’s embarrassing sometimes to ask for help, especially when it’s something you should probably already know – and the only person you can ask is an expert in the field. I’ve written here before about being an arrogant/over-confident man and assuming I can do something, even when I can’t.
It was humbling to step into this new vehicle and be made to feel like a learner driver all over again. Sometimes life can feel like everyone else got an owner’s manual that you somehow missed out on, and now you just have to wing it through conversations and activities that other people seem to just intuitively know how to do.
I read a great piece recently about the enshittification of the web and how difficult it is setting up new technology for anyone who doesn’t spend their working day using it. I’m lucky that I don’t drive often enough to have much knowledge of standard modern car components, or even much desire to possess any of it on my humble Honda. But I do spend lots of time around technology: using it and building it.
The experience I had with an unfamiliar car and a helpless sense of rising panic as I realised I couldn’t control it? That’s something I’m going to carry with me when I make things on the web, so hopefully others won’t feel the same thing in future when they just want to check their email or read the news.
Mini-feels this week
Some job news…
I’ve written here about taking redundancy at work back in December, and then spending 2025 to date attending job interviews. I’m very pleased to announce, then, that I accepted a job offer yesterday evening and will be starting my new role in early March.
I don’t think I can be “public” just yet until paperwork is done, so you’ll have to wait for the details – but I’m super excited about the new role/org. I also have lots of thoughts about the redundancy process (and trying to find a new job while unemployed), but that’s a future blogpost.
The nice part now, though, is that I get almost a month of true downtime: although I haven’t worked properly since the end of November, every week since then has been interview prep, job applications, attending interviews and waiting for progression/decisions. Now I can relax, have some “me” time, and spend time with the kids (and Maddy) before starting the new role.
So raise a glass: it’s been intense, but exciting. To new chapters!