Welcome back to Tire Mom! You know, this country of ours offers almost infinite variety. I drove for four hours, zigzagging my way across the lush, rolling fields of Minnesota – and then suddenly I was in the bustling metropolis of Minneapolis/St. Paul. If you don’t think they’re as “city” as New York or Chicago, just visit the Mall of America and you’ll get it. We’re talking 5,400,000 square feet of retail space. It is seriously that big.
My main focus in the Twin Cities was George, my Tire Mom #29. George was my youngest recipient. As a high school senior, it was his responsibility to get his two younger brothers to school every day, and the tires he was driving on definitely needed to be replaced. We accomplished that in short order.
While I loved knowing those three boys were now safer than they’d been in a while, there was more to my sense of satisfaction with this particular giving. George represented the newest generation of drivers, who don’t just need to know how to drive defensively. They must be aware of the safety features of their vehicles and be vigilant about keeping those features up to date. If you’ve raised a teenager, you know how they teeter on the line between impulsive kid and responsible adult, and they don’t simply cross over that line as they get older. They have to be educated in exactly what responsibility means, especially when it comes to driving potentially lethal weapons down the road.
I gave George all the tire tips and showed him the Tire Halo, but he was just one teenager, who I’m sure didn’t go back to school the next day and enthrall all his friends with that information. That’s why in every state I visited I went to the DMV and procured the driver’s manual so I could see which states include facts about tire safety and which do not. There is much work to be done.
If you want to post – you will, won’t you? – tell us about a lesson you were able to get across to a younger person. It isn’t easy, this educating thing, but I think you’ll agree that it’s worth being thought of as “an old geezer!”
Stay safe,
Diana Hubner
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