Hellish, yes -- but in Los Angeles and Boston, we're only surprised when people DON'T drive like this.

When I was in high school, one of my friends had a little brother three or four years younger. His mother was a single parent and, as such, tried to overcompensate by being very indulgent. One way that she indulged her youngest son was to let him be involved in driving the family car. It was a stick shift, and when it was time to change gears she'd depress the clutch and let the boy work the gear stick. This came back to haunt her when one day, while they were driving, the boy apparently decided that he was experienced enough with the whole gear thing and tried to change gears without being asked. The resulting gear-grinding noise proved a surprise to all.

And if this weren't enough, the mother once let her son sit in her lap so that he could "drive" the car himself. He put his hands on the wheel and, when Mom took off her hands to let him steer, said "Look, I'm driving!" and started turning the wheel back and forth like he was driving a bumper car. Fortunately they weren't moving too fast and there were no other cars around, or this story would be tragic in the real and not just the pathetic sense.