S4E6: Shannon Martin – Car Overheated in Sri Lanka (Transcript)

(sneak peek)

SHANNON: We went to the great wall in Beijing and they have these toboggans you can go down and you, you have sort of a break and a thing that you push that makes you go faster or slower, but otherwise, you’re not really steering, it kind of goes around. But I…

My husband said, I’m going to get in the one in front of you. I’m going to go first and you can go second. He was really smart because I kept pulling the brakes so I was so slow.

So he was, they kind of yelled at him for speeding. It’s typical of our driving personalities. They were like, Hey, slow down!

And me, they were telling me to hurry up because I was going so slow cause I kept, I was like, eh, break. It’s me and a lineup of people behind where you’re spaced out at the beginning but they had gotten jammed up behind me..

So I was causing a traffic jam.

(intro music)

BHAVNEET: Welcome back to drive with this podcast. I’m Bhavneet

TARANJIT: and I’m Taranjit and today’s driver is Shannon Martin. Unfortunately, I was not able to join this conversation with this guest, but you did a great job with the conversation.

I feel like you did a really good job of handling everything while I was not there and it wasn’t a truly amazing interview and I really wish it was there.

BHAVNEET: Awwww. That’s all it goes to Shannon. Cause she had the great stories

TARANJIT: . Let’s meet today’s driver Shannon Martin. She currently works in communications and podcasting, and she believes in continuing to explore and learn through travel books and podcasts.

Shannon and her husband had lived on three different continents and traveled extensively before returning to Spain where they live now.

(transition music) 

BHAVNEET: Welcome Shannon. Thanks so much for
joining us today.

SHANNON: sure. Ready to have fun and talk
driving.

BHAVNEET: I’m excited to talk to you since you’ve
been to so many different countries and so many different places. but before we
dive into you D wow, here we go. Drive into your crazy driving experiences
Let’s get to know a little bit about your background of driving. What are some
of the places that you’ve driven and where are you from?

SHANNON: I’ve been driving for a long time now.
It’s, it’s amazing. I grew up, I think you all, in Maryland, , and then. I
started driving at 17. I didn’t do it right away, but I did driver’s ed and
normal thing. But then, I had a good friend best friend that was a little older
and had started driving before me.

So I just put it
off, put off that dreaded test. And, I lived mostly on the east coast of the U
S everywhere, basically from Maryland down to Florida. Not everywhere. A lot of
places in between. And I’ve been living overseas now for about 10 years, first
in Spain for just some short periods.

, and then in
China and now back in Spain, and then all of those overseas places I have not
driven. Both my husband and I have international drivers permit. So you use
your license. With the international drivers permit to rent cars and things.
And we do rent cars from?

time to time in
Spain, but I usually leave that to him cause because everything is manual or
stick-shift here.

 And it’s, it’s a little tricky he enjoys it.
And in China it was a bit more complicated.

 It was difficult to even rent a car. You could
drive there and get a license. I think you had to get a license there. And in
Spain you also have to get a license here after you’re here six months. And
we’ve traveled a lot of places too.

And a lot of times
we haven’t driven, we’ve taken public transportation, but some of those places
we have and so lots of varied Ways that people drive in different countries and
different road conditions and stuff.

BHAVNEET: Yeah. So you mentioned that your husband
enjoys driving manuals. Have you ever learned how to drive a manual? And is it
just like for you.

SHANNON: I, yeah. I mean, technically, I guess I
could say, I know how, but I never really caught on to it. I never felt that
love for it. To me. There’s too many things going on and especially here, and I
guess, you know, a lot of places, but here, you know, very much pedestrians
really, really have the right of way. And most places in Europe, I guess,
really in Spain for sure.

And there’s a lot
of bicycles. and it’s well-organized, but you have to really be super aware.
And then the, a lot of the cities have a restricted driving areas and you know,
of course, one way streets and parallel parking, a lot of things. So for me,
that’s too many things going. I don’t, I wouldn’t say I have the greatest
hand-eye coordination.

 I didn’t get the strength in that department.

BHAVNEET: Well, I, I can imagine, I mean, here in
the U S things are more open and I can imagine overseas where it’s like so many
more people, everything’s more closer, all the things that you have to pay
attention to. Yeah. I don’t know if I would be able to do it either. It’s hard
enough paying attention to the road and then you

SHANNON: Yeah,

pay attention to
everything else.

SHANNON: for sure. I think the highway driving
here is really nice and pleasant and my husband especially really likes that
part of it. He’s not that fond of the city driving either we really, again,
only rent cars to travel. We don’t. A car or have a car or anything here in the
city where we live.

Public
transportation is really good and we could really mostly take trains here, but
especially during the pandemic, we were avoiding public transportation. So that
rental car thing has been nice, but he really enjoys getting on the highway.
They’re really nice here and really, well-maintained and everything.

 But then when you get to the cities, it just
becomes really, where are we going to park? Which one way street. And we, we
had, uh, we went away a couple of weekends ago and we were, we were just going
to one city about 20 minutes away and it’s probably took us an hour and a half
because of all the wrong turns we took.

BHAVNEET: I like to say, it’s not a road trip. If
you don’t take any detours so you got to see more of the area by taking all
those wrong turns. how would you describe your relationship with driving? Do
you love it? Do you hate it? Has it grown on you?

SHANNON: I don’t love it. I do like road trips
but I’m actually glad I didn’t. Really I’ve adjusted very well to living
overseas where a car is an assisted living. It’s not just overseas, but the
places I’ve lived, you? haven’t needed a car. And I’ve adjusted really well to
that because I was always, I would say I’m a nervous driver, like a tense it’s
it’s not really relaxing to me.

 Which I think for a lot of people that can be,
,

but the freedom of
getting around I mean, I enjoy certain things about it. And I think you guys
had have long commutes and I’ve had some very long unpleasant commutes early in
my career. And therefore I’ve been a remote worker for probably going 15 years
or so.

I’ve been remote
and haven’t had to commute. And I think that was personally, I was so fond of
that idea because of the early experiences having to drive, having to commute.
Grew up in Maryland, but my grandmother and a lot of my family lived in, , the
Fredericksburg and Richmond area. So we drove through that Northern Virginia
traffic.

And even when I
was a passenger, it was just, long trips sitting in traffic and the heat. And,
, I also get car sick.

BHAVNEET: Oh, no.

SHANNON: not very pleasant.

BHAVNEET: Since you’ve been in the. Maryland DC,
Virginia area. You can probably attest to how crazy traffic and drivers are.
Like there’s their own species. I feel like sometimes drivers here are so
crazy.

SHANNON: Yes. The amount of traffic there just is
wild sometime. And then when we lived in Florida, it was a different I mean,
there were, there was traffic, but it was a lot of the fact that the
infrastructure was kind of strange. , it was smaller. They did change some
things, .

 I was actually over, in the Tampa bay area,
but over on the, the, the coast, and that county, it really didn’t have, a
highway per se. It had this highway, they called it that went down, but it had
lights at that time still. So it wasn’t really a straight through a, and a lot
of, you know, just a lot of sitting at lights and sitting at stop signs and
stuff.

So that was, ,
it’s, you know, you really had to plan extra time to get everywhere

BHAVNEET: , is it safe to say that you prefer to
be the passenger over the driver when you’re in a vehicle?

SHANNON: yes, definitely.

BHAVNEET: Have you ever been in a situation. Gotten
in a car where you’re like, oh my God, this was a bad idea. I should not have
gotten in this car.

SHANNON: with some, with some, you mean as the
passenger.

BHAVNEET: Yup. Like, oh gosh.

SHANNON: Probably I’m trying to, oh, yes. I
remember. Okay. I remember a really good one. The one I remember most is we
visited friends. It was, uh, Friend of my husband, but I, I got to know the
woman and her husband at the time and I’m out in Colorado and we decided to
take this trip, , we were there visiting.

So it was
obviously in their car. We took this trip up to this mountain and we went to
these hot Springs. It was all these, mountainous roads and everything. And he
was a very fast, but also. Inconsistent driver. So he would break fast and
you’re going around these curves on mountains.

And, my husband
and I nicknamed it something like the, the death March or the, are we going to
die on this random road, out in the middle of nowhere, Colorado the roads. Out
to the hot Springs. I think it was fairly, I believe that we didn’t have a cell
phone signals at some point.

So we really
thought, we’re going to get an accident near and we’re not even going to be
able to get help.

BHAVNEET: Oh, my God. It’s like, no, one’s going
to find us.

SHANNON: Yeah. And he was just very relaxed. He
was too relaxed, just letting the car, do the driving, not, not having much
control of it. So it was, yeah. And the hot Springs didn’t turn out to be that
relaxing.

So it was funny
that we had taken, . Round trip almost four hours. Something that we thought
was going to be an hour, maybe. So it just, it was one of those stories you can
laugh at now, but it wasn’t very pleasant at the time.

BHAVNEET: Yeah. It’s like you were sitting there
like, oh my God. Okay. This’ll be worth it. When we get to the hot Springs, all
this craziness . Nope. Nevermind. Well, this is a great segue into your
craziest driving experiences. So what would you say is one of your top three
craziest driving experiences?

SHANNON: This was as a passenger. But we were in
Sri Lanka and most times they’re, you can either do public transportation, the
trains to get around.

, but a lot of
people hire a driver and your drivers actually, , with you the whole 10 days or
whatever that you’re there and actually sleeps in accommodation. Either near
where you sleep and, , it’s all in a package. , and they’re, and they’re
wonderful, but our poor driver had car problems.

 His car was overheating almost the whole time
and it’s, it was hot. And there’s a lot of getting behind, , an old motorcycle
or some, you know, there’s not a good emissions control. So there’s a lot of,
fumes coming off of vehicles and you get stuck behind. Horses and cattle and
elephants turkeys and all kinds of all kinds of animal life, which was actually
fun, a really fun part of the trip.

And , it was , one
of the most beautiful drives. Just, that was one of the most magical parts of
the trip. Unfortunately, slightly ruined by this situation with the car
overheating. Cause then we would have to just roll down the window.

Turn off the air
conditioning boil. And I mentioned, I get carsick. And so I was fine normally, but
then when you’re hot and you’re on sort of windy roads and things, it wasn’t
that pleasant. And so several times we had to stop and just wait for the car to
cool down. So they were already long drives with a lot of obstacles.

And that was
pleasant to an extent, but then if you have to just sit on the side of the road
for 20 minutes for the car to go home, it gets a little tiresome.

And then on the
way to the airport, it’s, it’s supposedly he had gotten it fixed, but it was
still happening. And here we are, we have a long flight, that we lived in
China, but it was still a fairly decent flight. And. You don’t want to be
feeling sweaty and gross and practically missing your flight.

We left probably
significantly more time than we needed to be safe. And we still just barely
made it. So that was definitely one, and the, the windy roads through the
mountains, the other, , I’ve been in a few accidents, mostly as the passenger.
I was hit as a driver rear ended by a kid that had just started driving. So
that wasn’t really crazy, but it was a bit of a unique experience because he
was so nervous

BHAVNEET: yeah, I can imagine.

SHANNON: Yeah, he was really upset. And I was, I
think I was just going to pick up, carry out for dinner. So it was something
where I re I said, oh, I’ll be back in 10 minutes. And then calling my husband
saying, uh, no, it’ll be a little longer. But his, his father, the kid who hit
me, his father was really nice and didn’t want to do it through insurance
because.

 A new driver claiming something like that. Uh,
it’ll mean the rates will skyrocket for awhile. We got an estimate and he was
really good to work with on getting the bumper. It was not nothing major, but
I’ve been passenger of several cars that had been rear ended.

It seems like rear
ending is, the thing that happens to just about everybody at some point,

BHAVNEET: That’s, that’s crazy. I mean, at least
you were able to get it fixed and poor kid, hopefully, at least his insurance
didn’t go up, I can understand like when you’re in Sri Lanka, like the heat in
India and that area. Oh my God. I dunno what time of the year you went? Oh, my
gosh. I can just, I can feel it right now.

Like how hot you
probably were having to drive around with no AC.

SHANNON: Yeah. Yeah. Not, not a pleasant thing.
And you get the car specifically, that’s part of what they advertise. Oh you’ll
have a driver and everything’s taken care of, and there’ll be air conditioned.
So it’s really a quite interesting, but yeah, I’ve had a lot of, uh,
experiences yet driving in different countries.

I’d say in Spain,
it, it feels. Of course cities, countryside is different, but it feels fairly
similar to us type of driving this Sri Lanka. It was very different because of
all the stuff on the road. And we ran a lot of natural environments. We’ve
actually been to a couple of countries where they drive on the opposite side
from the U S so New Zealand and Australia.

 That’s always unique given even a, , passenger
or driver it’s puts your sort of sense of direction off.

BHAVNEET: Yeah. And were you, were you the
passenger in both Australia and New Zealand?

SHANNON: Yeah, I, I let my husband take take on
that task, but one thing that was cool in New Zealand was that we, , we rented
a car for sort of the second half or more of our journey around the south
island of New Zealand. But the first half we didn’t have a car and we went to
this island near Auckland, and that Airbnb actually came with a car, which is
something.

Find a lot. And so
it was really amazing Airbnb experience and the, the owner, he would say to
you, if you’re from the U S or somewhere that drives on the other side, , we’ll
do a little drive together.

See how you’re
feeling and doing before I let you drive the car. But since my husband had
driven in Australia before he was like, oh, you’re, you’re fine.

BHAVNEET: Yeah, that’s really interesting. I’ve
never heard of a place. That’s like you get a car with your house,

SHANNON: Yeah. And I think, I don’t think it
would happen much in the, I think it may be heard about it once or twice, but I
think it’d be pretty rare on the U S just with insurance and liability and
those kinds of things. But in somewhere like New Zealand, it was pretty, and it
was a small island, so it was pretty, pretty safe.

BHAVNEET: Yeah, I, I have to ask, how, how hard
was it? The first time when you guys were switching onto the opposite side of
the road? How hard was it to , be like, okay, I need to stay on the left.

SHANNON: My husband was driving. He adjusted
pretty well to it, the only time. There were a couple things where he just
driving into a gas station or something and navigating and, , that’s can be
weird anyway, trying to figure out where, how do I go around?

And I think both
times, and even that car at the AirBnb, and I think those were all automatic.
Because that is another, added difficulty level, if you have to shift and
you’re on the road

BHAVNEET: Yeah. I know you said he enjoys driving
manuals, but when you’re driving on the opposite side of the road, you probably
want to stick to automatic.

SHANNON: yeah. You have enough complications
already, and we never , about eight years in China and we never, neither of us
ever drove. We had a friend, , I mean a couple of different people with cars,
but one particular friend that we knew really well that drove in the city
sometimes.

So we would drive
with him but I would say there , it could be, I mean, it was a huge city, but
they also limited the cars in the city. So it wasn’t as chaotic as it should be
for that size city. But in traffic could be really bad for sure.

And we would take
taxis and DV, which is their version of Uber a fair bit. And you would
definitely get stuck from time to time. It could be, it could be really bad at
times, but generally for where we went it wasn’t, it was. Too crazy. It was
more that mix of bicycles and scooters and cars that is not typical in the U S

 And, not only in China, but I guess in some
other countries that we visited, you definitely see this situation. People it’s
amazing what people get on a scooter. They have the family of four on a
scooter, and then I have some pictures from China where somebody would be
carrying a small refrigerator.

So be two people
on a, on a screen, on an electric scooter with a giant refrigerator or a small,
but still a large F or a big TV or, chairs, little kids in the front, when I
first moved in and after time, it doesn’t, it didn’t really phase me, but at
first that was something, oh, take a picture.

That’s so
interesting.

BHAVNEET: Yeah, we’ve had a guest come on. Say
that, an Asian con like east Asian, especially like scooters are more the
thing. And he’s seen some crazy things. Like people having, 60 pineapples on
the back. There were like three live pigs. And I was like, how in the world can
people balance these things?

SHANNON: Yeah, I definitely, it’s funny. Cause
sometimes in Shanghai where we lived as such, it’s such a big and modern city
and it definitely is, but certainly you still see. Life as it, it’s I lived in
this what could it be considered a very touristy area, but there was real daily
life going on there and a big market street right behind my house.

So if you went one
way, you went to everything touristy in the big park. And if you went the other
way, it was just, a neighborhood fish and chickens and everything. And I w I do
remember, especially this one time of year, a lot of the live chickens were for
sale and people, someone driving by on a scooter, I was like, , it was a couple
and a kid, a child on the front, and they had two chickens and they were tied
with rope, but they were still alive.

I obviously like
hanging off the side.

BHAVNEET: this is a great segue into the next
question I had since you’ve been to so many different places. Have you noticed,
that there are certain types of drivers or like, , if you profile a drivers in
different areas, what kind of drivers have you seen in different places that
you’ve been.

SHANNON: Yeah, I guess, you know, it very, I
mean, in the U S you mean, the first area where I lived and that’s typically
has been.

work, commuting,
purposeful commuting, a lot of that kind of driving, I think in Florida, what
was interesting was that , you had some road rage because you had.

People families,
people commuting for work and all that. Then you had a lot of retirees. So you
had this mix with the older drivers sometimes who probably should, shouldn’t be
driving. And I actually work in elder care. So I’m not saying that age is
automatically a reason that you can’t drive, but there are people that have
certain conditions and get to a point where they shouldn’t be.

And we had to deal
with that a lot actually at work. So. Separate drive it, driving situation.
I’ve had to deal with a lot with a lot of families, but you also had, , this
time of times of year where more people retirees would come down. So the
traffic would change drastically. If you lived there all the time, you have
this tendency to be irritated by all these extra drivers coming into my area in
China,

it was definitely
a different style. I remember when I first moved there, I read a book. There’s
an author called Peter Hessler. I think it is that wrote a lot of nonfiction
sort of memoir books about China. And he described it now. Quite a number of
years ago, but he described it as , because people had only recently
transitioned to cars and still drove scooters, lots that there was much more
treated at the way.

You would treat
riding a bike or walking where you might say like passing on the left or you
might do a hand signal. So they did a lot of when I first got there, especially
at a beeping, but not out of anger, but just saying BB, like coming up on your
left. Used a lot. Honking was actually.

Nonstop when we
first lived there and then they re they did this big, big crack down. And this
happened with several things where we were in China, same with smoking, where
once they finally really started fining people money and like a significant
enough amount of money, then they finally really cracked down on it.

 I heard about it, but I kind of forgot. And
then all of a sudden, one day. Wait a minute. He used to be a lot louder in my
apartment with all that honking. It really works. I just didn’t even notice,
you know, once it was gone, you forgot that it had been that way before, but it
really improved.

The scooters were
still, there were. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of food, scooter
deliveries, that’s how food was delivered. It’s not, no, one’s in a car
delivering food, they’re scooting around and, weaving between you on the
sidewalks and stuff. And so they still beeped a lot because of course they were
about to run you over on the sidewalk.

 The one area they could have used some work
on, because that was probably the, the most dangerous piece I got hit by a
scooter. once it was not a food one, but just a regular scooter because. They
were, it was pedestrians versus scooters, not so much cars versus scooters.

And I would say in
China for sure, the big thing wins. So pedestrians are the lowliest, then
there’s scooters then cars. And then if you’re a truck or a bus, you’re number
one and you could basically do what you want. Here in Spain, I don’t know if I
have a really good handle on it. What I would say is that people, when they get
on the highway they can be really speedy and it’s a very relaxed general pace
of life and sort of low key, low stress, in general in Spain.

I but there’s just
so many things about driving and parking and stuff in different places that you
see here.

I found out a
thing recent where people double park here and they didn’t realize they, I
don’t know if they leave the car in neutral how they do this, but they don’t
put the emergency brake on so that you can actually push the car out of the
way. If you need to get your car out when they’re double parked.

And I thought that
was. Yeah, I thought that was fascinating. We were in a place and people were
double parked and they were beeping, which that kind of makes sense to me to
try to get the person to come out so they could get out. And I didn’t see them
push the car out of the way. But when I was discussing this with someone, they
said, oh, I’m surprised they didn’t just let the way.

So who knows?

BHAVNEET: Mind boggling. I’m just gonna leave my
car. , if you need to move it, move it. That’s fine.

SHANNON: Just yeah, just get on and push it.
Yeah, And then there’s a lot of streets here that seem like they’re pedestrian.
Well, there are a lot of pedestrian only streets, tons, and almost any city or
town, especially because many towns have ancient areas and, cobblestone type
streets,

and then a lot of.
Older towns or any city you go to also have these very, some of these very
small windy streets and streets that you’ve probably seen on movies or maybe in
person where, the car, just even the small cars just barely fit. And you’re up
against a wall.

BHAVNEET: Yeah, I always imagined I’m like, that’s
what I think of when I think of European driving those little tiny, narrow
roads, and you’re just like, I can barely fit.

SHANNON: Yeah. . And then in the cities and
highways. Just about everywhere. There’s also a lot of roundabouts, which are
actually quite efficient, but sometimes Americans, especially aren’t as used to
those. We don’t have a ton, I guess, depending on where, where in the U S and
so you have to know that how that whole process works.

BHAVNEET: Yeah. I feel like here, especially we’ve
started getting roundabout, , in our area and americans just don’t know how to
use. , or at least Mary is like, what do I do with this? Cause people are like,
do I use my indicators? Do I, am I supposed to , what do I do? And people will
switch between lanes while in the roundabout.

And you’re like,
no, that’s not how it works.

SHANNON: Yeah. cut across when you need to. I
remember that. I think it was, European vacation, they did that. He kept going
around the, around the wrong, because he didn’t know how to get off of it. And
it’s, it’s funny, but I, that kind of thing does happen.

BHAVNEET: Yeah. I like the one in, is it London?
The really big ones. And it’s like, you get on the inside and you’re like, how
do I get out?

SHANNON: Yeah, I can definitely, I can definitely
see that, but they’re, they’re efficient. I mean, you don’t sit traffic lights
so it can work really well. It makes a lot of sense. I’m sure. From a city
planning perspective.

BHAVNEET: Now that we heard a little bit about
your crazy driving experiences around the world. Dive into what kind of driver
you are. How would you describe yourself? You kind of hinted at this a little
earlier, but how would you describe yourself as a driver? And would you say
that your family and friends would agree with that?

SHANNON: I think I’m, I’m cautious, timid, a
little stressed about driving. Not going to say I never speed, but I’d be more
on the side of being slow or at the speed limit. typically I I’ll give you a
story. That’s actually not driving, but it relates to driving. When I went to
the great wall in Beijing and they have these toboggans, you can go there.

And you, you have
sort of a break and a thing that you push that makes you go faster or slower,
but otherwise, you’re not really steering, it kind of goes around. but I, my
husband said, I’m going to get in the one in front of you. I’m going to go
first and second. And he was really smart because I kept pulling the brakes.

So I was so slow.
So he was, they kind of yelled at him for speeding. Typical of our driving
personalities. They were like, Hey, slow down. And me, they were telling me to
hurry up because I was going so slow. Cause I kept, I was like, eh, break. And
he finished before me, so he was there and he had his phone, he took a picture
and I need to delete it somehow because it’s me and a lineup of people behind
me.

Where you’re
spaced out at the beginning, but they had gotten jammed up behind me. So I was
causing a traffic jam. I’m not that bad on the road, but I, , I, I lean towards
being timid. My husband would definitely agree with that. And my family. Yeah.
I think they would probably say I’m a fine driver.

I don’t think they
would really, they might say. A little bit cautious. My father was my driving
teacher. So he would probably be more aware of the timidness. And also that I
wasn’t very confident. I remember just some crying incidents, when he was
trying and he was very patiently teaching.

It was it his
fault, but I was just upset with myself that I couldn’t get certain things and,
parallel parking was a fun one for me and I avoided. The Maryland driving
tests, you have to parallel park. I guess the tests are a little different
depending on which place you go, but you have to fully and very well parallel
park.

 So I did that and then I don’t think I
parallel parked. And I remember specifically in college, at one point I had a
car and friends had cars, and you might be helping them park and I would drive
around and around and around and around, around until I could find a place in
the lot instead of parallel.

Sometime, I think
one of my friends just pushed me or it was the only option and I did it and I
thought, what have I been so afraid of? It’s not that big of a deal. It’s not,
you’re not even talking about the city. So it wasn’t there wasn’t a line of
traffic waiting, yelling at you generally. It was pretty calm.

So I don’t know
why I was so timid about that, but then I got more confident with parking.

BHAVNEET: Yeah, parallel parking is one of those
things that people when you’re first learning, they really are like, oh my God,
this is the scariest thing. It’s the hardest thing you’re ever going to do. So
I just kind of like is with you until. Just do it. And then you’re like, oh,
that wasn’t that bad.

 So would you consider yourself when you are
driving someone who honks at other people?

SHANNON: Not very often.

BHAVNEET: Because I know, you didn’t drive in
Asia, but like obviously it honking there is completely different, which I
liked the point that you made earlier that, since it was scooters first and
they were transitioning to cars, you’re used to that in a scooter sense.

And then just
translated and it kind of explains a lot of why a lot of east Asian countries
are very loud and honking. I know India everyone honks everywhere.

SHANNON: Yeah, it’s just, it’s the way it
operates. There’s not always a set of, quite as much of a set, , rule and law.
I mean, there might be, but people it’s more negotiable. I know Vietnam is
like,

that for sure.
There’s a lot of scooters and people and you really have to figure out the flow

I think it’s that
way in India, Sri Lanka, a lot of, a lot of places

BHAVNEET: . It’s like a whole different language.

What would you say
is your biggest driving pet peeve when you’re on the road?

SHANNON: I would say, and this probably wouldn’t
be if I’m driving, but since I get car sick, I don’t like windy roads and
stuff, but I really don’t like when you have a driver that is. I call it like
herky jerky, where they are often on the brake gas, or especially when they
have both feet and one on the gas and one on the brake at the same time and they’re
going and all.

And I remember a
taxi ride to the airport in Shanghai, and it was a fairly long drive. And
again, you’re already, if you get motion sickness, the plane, isn’t always
great either. So you don’t want to start off already feeling sick. So is it I’m
I got to the airport, so that’s probably one of the worst things.

 I also, I don’t like road rage,

 I’ve definitely been with drivers that have
it, that are irritated with people. I. I’m sure I’ve had it at times with
traffic. I think for me, it’s usually more, , stressed. And so maybe I’m sort
of yelling to myself about the person or the, probably the traffic, but it’s
because I don’t like to be late.

 I don’t know that I’ve really had a lot of
major road rage personally.

BHAVNEET: Well, that’s good to hear. I mean,
that’s good to hear that you don’t have road rage.

We heard a little
bit about the type of driver you are. Let’s dive into your driving first. What
was your first time driving experience like and who was.

SHANNON: Father when we were practicing and
probably when we were younger, I’m sure we, he had us sit on his lap and drive
in the, in the cul-de-sac or something. I would say mostly with him and he was
patient and. My father was in medical sales, most of his working career.

So he drove a lot.
He had to use maps. There were no Google maps. . There were no phones, no cell
phones. I recall he actually got one of the very first car phones, which was
the big bag and it was now of course, what he told us may have been to intimidate
us from touching it or whatever.

But I remember it
being something like two to $3,000 for the thing. And that’s one thing. If you
have a really nice phone now, I guess it could cost that much, but then also
the calls were something. $5 a minute or it, it was insane. and so it was very
much hands-off you can’t call your friends. Yeah.

That’s not what
that’s for. But we were fascinated by it. And actually I had, much later, but
still when I started driving, I, I had, a bag Carphone. I’m dating myself now.

BHAVNEET: And you were mentioning the terrors of
parallel parking on your test. How was your driving test experience? Were you
able to pass it on the first try

SHANNON: I, no, I I felt the first time
remembering, so I did driver’s ed and then I got the learner’s permit, which is
like the written test. And then I know, I know I definitely took it once and
fail. So in, people all over the world won’t necessarily know, but the, the
main DMV which is the Maryland.

It’s motor
vehicles is in Glen Burnie, Maryland, and that, and then there’s different
branches, but it’s only some of them do the tests or this is the way it was.
And so I did mine at the main one and it was pretty notoriously hard, and the
thing that I got caught on the first time that failed me, it was an automatic
failure.

They had a, no
right on red traffic light and they ha they make the sign very hard to see. So
you’re paying attention, , that you’re not supposed to do that. I’m pretty sure
in driver’s ed, we went over, what might catch you up? And that was one of the
things, but as soon as I did that, I didn’t even get to the parallel parking
part the first time that happened, because once you do that, that’s automatic
failure.

 They just take you back. So I failed the first
one and then I, , I passed the second one. Just fine. It’s nerve wracking.

BHAVNEET: Yeah, it’s really interesting that you
said the, the Glen Burnie one is notoriously hard, I guess has changed because,
when we went to go take our driver test it’s, that was actually known as being
the easiest. it is headquarters I guess they’re super busy. I don’t know.

SHANNON: oh,

BHAVNEET: Yeah. And the one that’s near us is
known as being really hard.

And so like,
people won’t purposely avoid it, that was really interesting, but also the fact
that they made you parallel park afterwards, after you did other parts of the
test. Cause I feel like atleast in our area, they make you do it first. So that
way, if you can’t do it, you’re done. Like I don’t even

SHANNON: that’s

smart. That’s
really smart. And although I was glad that that first time when I failed. The,
from the light that I was glad that wasn’t in a way, I was glad that wasn’t
after. Cause if I had gone through parallel parking and then failed on
something simple like that, which I probably would have been more likely to
miss it at that point.

Cause I would have
been flustered by the parallel parking, but yeah, it’s, I’m sure a lot of that
has changed and it is fascinating. I’m sure you guys have talked to so many
different people, how different driving tests are. Just within the United
States even within those state. But between different states, some are very
much just drive around the block, , and learners, permits work differently and
all of that.

And if, if I ever,
if we ever decide we want to get a car here in Spain we actually, as Americans,
there’s no exchange process, unfortunately, because the U S. State by state.
They often can’t do reciprocation with places because they don’t have a
federal. If they had a federal license, it would be easier , to work out.

But because of
that, they don’t have any reciprocity or anything on that. So literally if
you’ve been driving for 40 years, you move here. And after six months of being
a resident, you’re supposed to get a Spanish license, which is starting from
scratch. You take a written test or computer and then, , driving tests.

And it’s what I
understand is similar to what I had heard in China. It’s very. Minute details
on the written part and you really just have to take a million practice tests
and memorize. And, I didn’t really know what that was all about. I thought, oh,
driving rules. Okay. Yeah. You’d need to refresh her anyway, my Spanish teacher
was telling us no it’s things.

I mean, it’s got a
lot of first aid on it. They want you to be able to

, do first aid. If
you get in an accident or something, it’s got a lot of car, car maintenance and
car safety. And she said, That’s where it’ll get very complicated where they’ll
say, let’s say your tire. Pressure’s supposed to be.

I obviously don’t
know what I’m talking about 200 PSI or something. And she’ll say there will be
two answers that are like, should it be 212 PSI or 215 PSI, , or the centimeters
there’ll be one centimeter off so it’s not that the answers are there. They’re
purposely very detailed to where you could still very much know what you’re
doing and know a lot of the things very well.

And that’s the
only way. To pass that as really to be able to memorize certain, those certain
parts.

BHAVNEET: That’s.

really interesting
like that. , I mean, I guess it’s also a good thing that they, then you’re
really prepared you know what to do. Cause here it’s just like, What do you do
at this intersection? All right. You passed

SHANNON: Yeah, I can see some of it being good
with some, some basic car maintenance. And actually the teacher that brought
that up, she said it is good because when I, I used to drive, I drove first in
the U S cause her, her husband is from the us and she said, I, uh, I got my
license there and everything. She goes, I didn’t, I didn’t know, I was supposed
to check my oil in my car. So all of a sudden. Just a big problem. and.

she, no one ever
taught me car maintenance. And so she said the car maintenance part and some of
the first aid stuff made sense, but some of the detailed things are just to
throw you off.

BHAVNEET: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, it’s good and
it’s bad cause it’s super hard then, but Hey, you know what you’re doing? If
you passed.

SHANNON: yeah. So most everyone does a auto
school. . Because they give you like the PR all the practice books and stuff,
and then you can do the practical part and you can, I believe the computer, you
know, the written piece of it or the computer piece You could do in English.
But, the translations are so bad.

So I’ve heard
that, uh, it’s really a bad idea to do it in English. And so if I ever did it,
I, I would do it in Spanish, but I probably won’t ever do it.

BHAVNEET: You got your husband to drive you this
way.

SHANNON: Yeah.

BHAVNEET: Now that we talked about your driving
experiences, your past present, let’s talk about the future of driving. With
self-driving cars becoming a thing more prominent and probably eventually
sooner, rather than later becoming a mainstream thing. What are your thoughts
on self-driving cars?

And what’d you get
in.

SHANNON: Ooh, I, yeah. I mean, I’m all for
technological advances, so I’m not going to be. Oh, that’s anti-technology, I’m
not gonna say I wouldn’t. But of course I’ve watched some, sci-fy things where
someone hacked into it and took over to kill people. That’s tough. That’s
worrisome, but I actually think realistically, if we want to be true to you, if
we want to be realistic right now that could things, car could be hacked.

Even if it’s not
self-driving in order to, I mean, you can just cut wires and kill somebody. So
it’s not that different. I do think it’s quite interesting with AI and how much
cars even now, before self-driving how different it is. , I heard one of my
favorite authors that writes a, what is it called?

 Futuristic, not, not scifi per se, but
futuristic kind of things. He said, we don’t realize how much it’s already so
much. Our daily lives and our cars are all smart cars, everything they do.

And he said, so
now I T I had a problem with my, oh, he said he was annoyed with all the
noises. The cars make nowadays, they tell you about backing up and this and
that. You’re about to hit this. And so he’s, he wanted to see if he could get
some of it turned off and he said, , the dealership, they don’t even, it’s like
the black box, like the mysterious, like they, they were like, we don’t know.

To do, to, to tap
into that, to change it. It’s, it’s mysterious to us. So yeah, I think it’s,
it’s going to be interesting, but I’m not, I’m not against that. I really have
really enjoyed what’s called the sharing economy, but I don’t know if it’s so
much that anymore of the progress of having things like being able to.

, Uber and that
kind of stuff, of course, but also the car share situations. And here we have,
I think there’s car shares here, but they also have the scooters, little
scooters that you can get on the street, with a QR code and an app and I think
that’s SU it’s, it’s really handy and for a lot of modern day situation,
especially people living in cities, it makes a lot of sense.

And I think we can
meet some of that could improve. Life and hopefully like for the planet.

BHAVNEET: Yeah, I agree. Things we’re efficient
and hopefully help cut down on like traffic and all of that stress, that cones
load driving in cities.

SHANNON: What about you? How do you feel about
the self-driving.

BHAVNEET: I actually, I really, really enjoy
driving at least at this stage. I really love it. I don’t know if I’m willing
to completely give up that control. If there was a switch where I could be like
today, I don’t feel like driving. Go ahead. Or I want to drive, let me, let me
drive kind of thing maybe.

But I feel like I
also need to see it in action. Like, , It works, make sure see stats and all
that. Make sure it’s actually reliable.

SHANNON: yeah, that makes sense. For sure. Yeah,
there is. I mean, a lot of people get a lot of pleasure out of driving so that
we don’t think about that sometimes when we’d go towards some type of
convenience or we build some AI to do something sometimes I don’t think we
think about, what we’ve lose. In terms of that stuff.

And also what,
what the purpose is. I mean, with self-driving cars, maybe it’s more evident,
but there’s other things that we build without thinking without really it
filling a need or a pain point

we’ll see what
happens.

BHAVNEET: Yeah, it’s going to be an adjustment.
It’s like, all right, now, take your hands off. Wait, what?

SHANNON: Strange.

BHAVNEET: Bonus question time. Are you ready? If
you could make one new driving law, what would it be? It could be any as
realistic or crazy.

SHANNON: Wow. Well, okay. I guess this is follows
along with what you’re talking about. I would somehow make there be a more
universal system for driving permanent driving license. So that there’s
something for someone like me and my husband, and I’ve lived all over. I feel
like if there was a better, more uniform, which let’s face it, that is a
fantasy because we can’t even do that in the U S all the states have different
things.

Can. You know,
have your us license. So I’m sure that the whole world will never agree on
that, but that would be my magic, my magic law.

BHAVNEET: That’s actually a really good one. I, I
agree with you, like even state to state is so crazy. Having a least a way that
you can transfer between countries will be amazing. So you don’t have to go and
take this super hard Spanish driving test.

SHANNON: Yeah.

And at a minimum,
I would like there to be. Licensed. I mean, if, if we can’t get the world to
agree, it would be nice if there was because for people, so many people I know
that have lived overseas at different, most, you really, a lot of times you don’t
have a state residency anymore. If you don’t maintain a home

and so you fall in
this weird gray area, we already had to renew our licenses once and we no
longer had a tie with our previous state. So we were kind of lucky in that my
family, our family members lived back in Maryland and we were able to. . Okay.
We get some bills sent there and stuff, so we can take that to the DMV.

And since we had
grown up there and had licenses there before, I feel, I don’t know for sure,
but it seemed to make it easier because they pulled up old information that was
many, many years before they pulled up all the information, but there’s really
no there’s different ways that people navigate that there’s nothing set and
it’s it’s can be very strange to figure out and, , really not have a good
solution for.

BHAVNEET: Yeah, that that’s a really good one. I,
I mean, as you said, That will actually happen how realistic that would be, but
one can hope. Do you have any final tips that you would like to give new
drivers or listeners? Any advice.

SHANNON: , enjoy what you can have it, whether it’s
as a driver or a passenger, if you’re someone like me, who knows, it’s not
their favorite thing to do to be the driver, then, , you can enjoy being the
passenger too, but it’s, it is an enjoyable experience to be able to like,
we’re, we’re lucky.

Cars and we can
get around, places and see things, especially in the U S that are really not
accessible a lot of other ways. So it’s, it’s really certainly convenient. And
then on the flip side of that, I also really believe in getting around on my
two feet and bicycling and stuff.

So you can get the
best of both worlds, use the car where it’s, where it has its strengths. And
then, there’s other alternative means of transportation.

BHAVNEET: Before we let you go. Where can
listeners find you and connect you?

SHANNON: We actually, we have a blog, but I don’t
keep it up very well, but it’s two who travel like two who travel and that is,
there’s a Twitter with it. So that’s pretty, that’s a pretty easy place. , and
I’m actually Sam S a M. My is T two who travel on Instagram. And then I also
work in the podcasting world.

I work for podbean, which is a podcast hosting platform. So that’s one place where I’m
probably most active online is on all the pod bean stuff.

BHAVNEET: Very cool. Thank you so much for coming
on and sharing your driving experiences. It was really fun talking to you.

 (transition music)

TARANJIT: It was really interesting that she
mentioned her driving law would be having a universal us driver’s license,
which I. I mean, I guess it makes sense in a way that every state in the U S
has its own laws and own requirements that as soon as you cross state lines,
some may not have gone through as intense of a driving process as other states
may have.

BHAVNEET: But it’s also really interesting to
think about it. Other countries do not have that. You get a, like, I don’t
know, Spanish license. Yeah.

TARANJIT: That’s what my question was like India,
for instance, that’s only one I can think of it on my head. Has its own states
per se.

But do they have
one universal license for the entire country? Yeah.

BHAVNEET: Are we just so different that like each
of our states like to be its own entity pretty much, they want to be their own
thing. So is that why? , are we the only ones are we.

TARANJIT: That’s what I’m curious about. Do other
countries have specific lice, like each state or each area has its own test or
is it universal throughout the country?

BHAVNEET: Yeah, if you’re in a country where you
have different licenses, depending on what your region or a state your in, let
us know below,

TARANJIT: why are you whispering to

BHAVNEET: them? The comments secretly tell us.

TARANJIT: Another thing I was thinking about
because we do ask our guests about self-driving cars and what their opinion is
about it and how comfortable they would be with it is when self-driving cars,
if they do become the norm, you know, like self-driving cars are everywhere and
barely anyone actually drives anymore with the license process be different.

And would it, ,
turn into a more universal license in the U S because you know, self-driving
cars. Essentially be the same basic, you

BHAVNEET: know, what would your license test even
be then? Do you know how to start vehicle? All right. I guess how to sit in
back a vehicle. Good job.

TARANJIT: What do you even have to, or would you
have to take a basic crash course in maybe.

 Take over if something were to go wrong. Yeah.
I

BHAVNEET: feel like you would still want some sort
of basic understanding of if you’re in a situation, oh my God, I need to take
it over. Or basic maintenance of , how do I start stop this vehicle? , still
need to know how to do that

TARANJIT: in my mind.

What I also think
self-driving cars could go that way or it could turn into kind of like you
getting on a train where , you just kind of, it’s just been ready for you.

BHAVNEET: You will, you push a button on your
phone and be like, I’m ready to go.

TARANJIT: Or it’s like an amusement parks where
it’s on a track and you just kinda like hop and

BHAVNEET: you don’t even get your own car

TARANJIT: anymore.

No, you get your
own like gondola, your own little space, but you’re like on this track that
just keeps going

BHAVNEET: public transportation the whole time.

TARANJIT: Well, isn’t that what self-driving cars
kind of are going to turn into.

BHAVNEET: No, because you still have your vehicle.

TARANJIT: Right. But I feel like there will be
distinct paths or something that

BHAVNEET: it’d be like those animated scifi
movies, where you just like hop into whatever you want.

It’s like
constantly going like, oh, time to go. Yeah.

TARANJIT: Yeah. I wonder

BHAVNEET: I just like that noise and that’s how I
imagine them hopping it. Well, that’s good.

We hope you enjoy
listening to Shannon’s driving stories and be sure to stay tuned until the end
of this episode, to hear a sneak peek of next week’s driver Amandeep from
india,

TARANJIT: he dives into the craziness of Indian
drivers, which I’m sure you heard a little bit from us when we share them.
Small experiences we had, but he shares some of his experiences on the road.

Like the time he
crashed the motorcycle into some aunties.

BHAVNEET: Thank you for tuning in this week. And
if you enjoyed this podcast, you can help support the show by sharing it with
your friends, or leaving us a review. It truly does help us get discovered.
Thank you.

TARANJIT: Thank you for choosing to drive with us
and we’ll see you next week

BHAVNEET: Vroom vroom.

(outro music)

AMANDEEP: I remember my first exposure to a two
stroke motorcycle was with two of my friends, there were three of us and in
our, in our area we used to live, we used to have this huge garden and it was,
it was circular in shape.

So on a Sunday
morning, we all got together, took out his bike and we’re like okay, let’s go
and learn the motorcycle. So he took the first round. Careful, all set. The
second guy, there were three of us on the same motorcycle.

None of us knew
how to ride. And, I’ve always been a little, a little curious so I thought, on
a turn, he told me, on a turn, you’re not supposed to accelerate so hard and
keep a control over your clutch and your brake.

I said, alright.
We started. On the third turn, I thought, what if I accelerate hard? What if I
jerk off my clutch?

I did exactly
that. There were these four or five ladies out for their morning work. We went
and rammed the bike suddenly into them.