Senior Reeanna Johnson is not your typical teenage student driver.  Aside from owning a sleek, black 2007 Audi TT, she got her license during her sophomore year and has been on quite the wild ride ever since.

“I got my license on December 14, 2009,” Johnson recited brightly, as if reading a line from her favorite book. She was able to inherit her car from her mother, who had originally bought the vehicle for herself, but later decided to pass it down to her daughter. As a result of almost two years on the road, Johnson has had numerous experiences on the way to and from school, friends’ houses, and various other places that will not be leaving her memory any time soon.

These experiences include car accidents.  Yes, accidents, as in the plural form of the word accident.  Johnson has been in two significant car wrecks, one of which occurred in UC High’s school parking lot.  “One time when I was at school, I backed into a student’s mom’s car!” Johnson recalls with a laugh.  In addition to her damaged ego, the expenses got up to around $1,000 for damages to the car.  Obviously, this aspect of the collision was not as amusing.

The other car crash that Johnson was involved in was not in any way her own wrongdoing.  “I was stopped at a light at an intersection, and an ambulance was coming up from behind me.  I moved to the side but I got rear-ended by the car behind me,” she explained.  Thankfully, the perpetrator was a very sweet, apologetic college girl, but it is apparent that karma tracked Johnson down to bite her in the rear.  The rear of her car, that is.

The best feature of Johnson’s car is its aptitude for speed.  She even has a title to prove this claim, as she is the winner of a friendly race that took place on the I-52.  In the summer of her junior year, Johnson found herself being “egged on” by a friend on the freeway.  “The race was completely in the spur of the moment,” she said.  Given the big smile on her face as she spoke, this triumph might as well have occurred just yesterday.

Driving has been a central component of Johnson’s life as a high school student at UC High. When this school year comes to a close, it is likely that she will have more exciting stories to tell about her adventures in her Audi TT.