I turned 16 on Friday, but the Driver's License Office in my small hometown was only open on Tuesday, so I had to wait through that extremely long weekend and an endless Monday before going in for my examination. I came to the Driver's License Office half an hour earlier _ , pacing back and forth on the worn porch waiting for the office to open at eight. I reviewed the driver's manual for the hundredth time. I was ready. I knew the manual backward and forward; I had made an "A" in my driver's training course, and I was a genius behind the wheel. Finally, the door opened and a weary-looking man in a brown uniform let me in. "Let me guess. You want to take the driver's test." his voice was not enthusiastic. "Yes!" I answered in excitement. "Ok, fill this out, and if you pass we'll go for a drive."  _ . A quick check showed that my paper was perfect. "Let's get in the car." He tossed me a set of keys, and I slid behind the wheel. Everything was going smoothly as we pulled out of the empty parking lot. I signaled a right hand turn, and we were on a deserted street. This was going to be easy. "Turn left and go up Young Blood Hill," he ordered. My hometown is in the mountains, and Young Blood Hill was almost vertical  . As I eased up the steep hill and came to a stop at the top, I heard the car's engine die. My heart sank. I would have to start it again without rolling back down the hill. I swallowed hard and turned the key; as I moved my foot from the brake, the car began to roll. I suppose I could have rolled all the way back to the bottom except for one thing. There was something behind me which stopped my roll with a rough shake and crash of glass--a police car. The policeman wrote me a ticket as I looked over the damage, and the man from the Driver's License Office slid behind the wheel. I waited until we had parked before I asked how long a person had to wait before taking the test again. Why didn't the car roll back to the bottom?
It hit a police car. The engine died. The writer braked it hard. The man from the Driver's License Office helped make it stop.