student <> teenager

i couldn’t figure out why idiots were giving teenagers such high end rides…

…i mean seeing that, in this economy, was maddening to say the least.

a conversation with ME cleared it up, which is especially funny because while i have put over 31,000 miles on the car i got barely a year ago, she never really leaves the house. but she had a theory (or fact?) about the situation that, since hearing it, i feel i have proved to be legit.

i kept seeing these nice rides…beamers…benzes…(not bentley’s)…being driven with one or two or three “STUDENT DRIVER – PLEASE BE PATIENT” stickers on them. i never see these at convenience stores or auto parts places any more, so i assume they’re now procured from amazon which is why literally everyone uses the same ones?

okay, admittedly i paused to look for the image to put here and ended up stumbling on an article referencing the “student driver sticker TREND” due to post pandemic (it was five years ago – let it go) driver’s ed shifts or adults “learning late”, which is what ME was talking about, but with a twist.

her theory (and in tech rich travis county where i don’t think there’s a big tech firm NOT represented at this point) is that it’s people from other countries who are now in the states and have to learn the rules of the road here, as do their spouses, some of which didn’t (or couldn’t) drive in their native land.

and looking at the drivers in these cars, that appears to track pretty well.

so, i don’t know how “trendy” and shit it is, but her point checks and i’ve pulled around enough of these nervous twats and seen enough panicked brown skin to see she may be on to something. it’s interesting that this is happening in the middle of an unprecedented crack down on immigrants – guess this is them flexing the “have” and “have not” sections of their culture here?