RIVER CITY JOURNAL: QUICK! WHAT ARE THE RULES FOR PARENTS OF TEEN DRIVERS?

Rule No. 1: No father is permitted to teach his son or daughter the fundamentals of motoring. Leave that to experts: other teen-agers.

If you're the parent of a mid-teen who has his or her eye on a Missouri driver's license, you're probably pretty much up to speed on changes in the law.

You're probably also a nervous wreck.

Missouri is going to a graduated licensing system that lets children get behind the wheel of one of your most expensive personal possessions and, if their feet will reach the gas pedal, go roaring off into the byways of no-signaling lane-change artists and red-light runners.

No wonder parents of teen-agers start graying and going bald.

Thank goodness, I'm past the tribulation of young sons navigating several thousands pounds of steel, plastic, glass and human cargo down a jam-packed highway while I watch from the front passenger -- and brakeless -- seat.

The cars we owned at the times our sons were starting to drive both had the obvious identifying marks: worn-out floor carpeting where the brake would be if front-seat passengers had brakes.

I think the new Missouri law is enormously complicated. I wish some senator or representative had asked me to help put this new law together. I guarantee it would have been much simpler.

In all probability, I too would have cobbled up some sort of graduated system.

For example, I'd let anyone under the age of 16 drive with what you might call the Free-Range License. This is the license many of us who grew up on farms had when we were youngsters. This license allows you to drive in open fields, deserted gravel roads and anywhere in Kansas west of Topeka.

With a Free-Range License -- which costs nothing and only requires parental approval -- I nearly managed to destroy a big part of my family's mechanical farm machinery when I was a boy. Here's what happened.

My step-father had been spreading fertilizer on a field, pulling the spreader behind the trusty Ferguson tractor. You will recall that these tractors had clutch pedals on the left and double brake pedals on the right. The double brake pedals allowed you to lock up one rear wheel or the other to make tight turns. There was no gas pedal. Instead, gas was regulated by a lever up by the steering wheel. The gear-shift lever was directly under the steering wheel sticking up from the crankcase.

I had driven the tractor many times, getting it from the barnyard to the field or from one field to another. But I hadn't had much experience pulling equipment with the tractor.

My step-father asked me to take the tractor and fertilizer spreader from the field back to the barn. To get there, I had to go through a gate out of the field, turn onto the gravel road that went from one end of the farm to the other and then into the barnyard.

I took off, confident that this would be an easy assignment. I was pretty happy with myself until I got about 50 yards from the gate going out of the field. That's when my adolescent brain calculated the opening in the gate to be exactly 4 inches wider than the fertilizer spreader. At the speed I was traveling, there was a good chance of hooking one of the gate posts with the spreader and -- well, the rest would be an unpleasant history.

There's no question about it. I panicked. I forgot to step on the clutch. I forgot to push up on the gas lever. All I did was stomp on the brake pedals. My boy-sized foot pounded on one brake pedal and then the other rather than hitting both pedals at the same time. The tractor seesawed across the narrowing gap between boyhood and a fate worse than death.

As the tractor roared through the gate opening, I managed to crush both brake pedals at the same time. The tractor stalled, sputtered, lurched and died. I looked back. The wheels of the spreader were mere inches from the gate posts. I had been spared for another day of chores, milking and homework -- and happy to be alive.

After that, I studied the official state driving manual until the day I turned 16. My step-father drove me into town to take the written driving test at city hall. I scored pretty well, and the examiner asked if I was ready to take the road test.

You know how a lifetime can fit into a split second? That's what happened to me at that instant. I weighed my young life against taking a road test I hadn't prepared for. There are inspirational moments, however, when you know what you're about to do is right. "Yes!" I said to the examiner. My right hand had just found the keys to the family car in my jeans pocket.

I took the test. I passed. I even parallel parked. Don't ask me how.

And I drove home, possessing a full-fledged driver's license.

That's my system. First comes the Free-Range License.

Then comes the Look-If-You-Can-Parallel-Park-You-Can-Do-70-Down-a-Bumper-to-Bumper-Freeway License.

That's how most of us, who are keeping current insurance rates so low because we're responsible drivers, did it.

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.