I find odd things at yard sales.  Case in point?  I stumbled across a 1972 edition of Code Rousseau - a French driver's ed textbook - at a local garage sale.  As odd - or dumb - as that may sound, it's actually a fun read - even if you're not proficient en Francais.

Let's start with the graphics.  Although it's not Tintin Goes to the DMV, the illustrations are remarkably clear and true-to-life.  Think of it more as a softbound form of the Mille Borne card game, if you will.  Virtually every road sign imaginable - at least in circa 1972 France - is illustrated with great detail.  So too is that sexy Fiat Dino that graces the rear cover.  Score.

On that note, you can keep tabs of your progress through a series of self-tests.  Sure, they read a bit dry, but they're also somewhat fun.  Don't believe me?  Here, I've translated one for you...

Number 18:  If the Marchal electicals on your Peugeot 504 go to hell, will staring at a Michelin map in the middle of the road help you even in the least?

Well, maybe it doesn't say that.  I blame Babelfish...

Outside of feeding my fetish for French vehicles, I'm most impressed with this book for the piles of information deemed "need to know" for student drivers.  Many of Code Rousseau's chapters are chock full of tidbits essential for motoring, but absent from many modern driving courses.

Oddly enough, this includes using a manual transmission.  Rousseau starts with a handy diagram of shift patterns for a host of French iron (good to know if you're saving for that vintage Renault 16) and follows through with a good six pages of how to shift a stick.  That's - oh - five and three-quarters pages more than my personal textbook supplied.  

Given that my class was taught to drive on a war-torn Pontiac Grand Am with a Hyrda-Matic 4T60E on its very last legs, anything more than a basic definition of a manual transmission was deemed non-essential.  "If you want to learn stick", our teacher once barked, "go **** up your parents' own transmission."  (I did, and I dare say it was well-worth a the smell of burnt clutch and a look of fear on my father's face.)

But the fun doesn't stop there.  Also included is a nice 10-page section, which carries on into detail about driving commercial vehicles.  Yes, big rigs, buses, tractor-trailers and the like.  Double-clutching, exhaust brakes, engine retarders... you just can't find this stuff in today's classrooms.  Perhaps that's for the better, as a 16-speed Spicer 'box, three-speed Eaton rear axle, and a three-axle air-brake system may be a bit much for a 16-year-old to manage.

Tips on driving articulated buses may be irrelevant, but the section on maintenance - and, for that matter, how motor vehicles actually function - is a great include.  Granted, I knew the difference between four- and two-stroke motors before I reached driver's ed, but my textbook never even touched the subject.  Code Rousseau actually walks students through subsystems like carburetors, radiators, and lubrication - that last point an important one in avoiding costly mistakes.

I won't know anyone enrolling in driver's ed here in the 'States for a few years yet, but once they're of age, I'm loaning them Code Rousseau.  They may not understand a single word of it, but by giving them the book, I am - at the very least - trying harder than their instructor ever will.