I took the driver's ed classroom portion in the last quarter of my 8th grade year and the driving portion that summer. In Idaho, at the time, you could get your license at 14 1/2. We used a 1989 Geo Spectrum with a manual. In the town I grew up, we had a notoriously steep road that our instructor would always use to test student drivers. We had to drive halfway up the road, stop, put the parking break on, and shut down the engine. We then had to start the car back up, and with a combo of the parking break, clutch, and gas we had to proceed up the rest of the hill. The instructor would fail you if you stalled the engine, spun the wheels, or cooked the clutch. I was one of the lucky few that only had to do it once to pass. I had some practice on hills in the back 40 of my grandpa's ranch in his truck.
