Noelle McCarthy: Feel the fear... and drive anyway

'Suddenly I understand why midlife crises come with Jaguars.' Photo / Supplied

My driving instructor reminds me that it is about being brave. Getting on the roads, that is. He doesn't say this very often, only when I am at my least brave.

When I am slumped behind the steering wheel shaken and shaking, adrenaline coursing through my veins, or when I am bunched up in the corner, not wanting to go back to it, trying desperately to melt through the door.

Getting on the roads is about getting out there, he says, it's about seizing the moment, and going where we need to go. Of all the speeches he gives me, this one is my favourite.

It's the AA training-car version of the coach-in-the-locker-room moment, when the team is 20 down at halftime, except here, coach has a clipboard and a Bluetooth extension in his ear.

He puts out his hand, and I give him a trembly high five. He says "yes, very good! Let's go!" in a deep voice. This sounds ridiculous. It is not ridiculous. It is important motivation.

After this speech I am ready to go forth once more. I'm ready to go out there and win. I am ready to take my life in my hands. I'm ready to change lanes.

Three weeks into driving lessons, and here is what I know. Driving a car is easy, it's fun. Simple monkey business; ignite, point, shoot.

Get in, buckle up, check the mirrors, turn it on. You follow the steps in a process, and enjoy the sensation of flying sitting down.

Driving is a doddle. I could happily do it all day. I'm new enough to it that the displacement makes me giddy, I'm in love with the effortless propulsion, the miracle of the accelerator, the shock of ease and speed.

Piloting the training car around Halsey St, I switch between brake and accelerator building muscle memory, I gaze through as many mirrors as I'm told to, dizzy with an assortment of reflections, putting it all together to make a picture of exactly the space I'm in with my car.

And I like how driving makes me feel. Me driving is me to the power of, well, way more than 10. Faster, stronger, more powerful.

Suddenly I understand why midlife crises come with Jaguars, why I once had a boyfriend who named his car. They're like pets who make you feel powerful, you can even make them purr.

So, the driving thing, I get it now. You sail down streets in a car, you feel faster, sleeker, more engaged. I love this sensation, I can see why it's addictive.

It's driving with other cars I hate. I have a feeling this is a boring revelation, to other drivers, anyway, but learning to drive is turning me into Jean Paul Sartre.

And making me terrified that other drivers feel like Sartre too. Existentialists cannot know if others are experiencing the world the way they do, they can be certain of no other consciousness but their own.

This is exactly how I feel about other drivers. I have no idea whether or not they are experiencing the road in the same way as I do. Thus, I have no way of knowing whether they'll follow the rules.

Existentialism says you formulate your own truth, your own idea of what's worth living for, and you live and die by that alone. I do not want my fellow drivers formulating their own material truths, I want them following the road code.

In order to drive to work, we all need to be following the same rules. What I am scared of is that I can be sure of nobody's obedience but my own. What if someone decides to go loco and make an illegal right turn? What if someone decides, "give way rule be damned!" and sails through an intersection? And what if the pedestrians get on to it, decide they don't accept the distinction and start commandeering the road?

The possibilities for disruption are endless, and it's because we all share the road. Hell is other people, said Sartre, an uncompromising maxim that defined 20th century existentialism and pretty much describes the junction between Victoria St and Hobson St to a tee.

And yet I drove through that one last night, a manoeuvre akin to Crossing the Void for me. I drove in traffic down Hobson St, a street full of people exercising their freedom to choose in thousands of different ways, while driving, just like me.

I applaud their freedom! I celebrate my own! So long as none of us makes a decision that kills me.

Hell is other people. Hell is other people on the road. I can't beat them, I can't control them, I have to join them. And look at every intersection as a lesson in the joys and responsibilities of the exercise of free will.