My name is Mikhail Alexandrov, and I was born in 1960 in Moscow Russia. I lived mostly there till 1999, when I moved to US, and currently live in McLean, Virginia.
I learned how to drive at 12. They had those funny little Kids licenses back then in the Soviet Union, which allowed one of this age to drive on public roads, when accompanied by an adult. Since then, Im always driving. As of now Ive been driving for 34 years already. Never as a profession, but I do hold Russian commercial drivers license in addition to Russian and American regular licenses and Russian motorcycle license. I drove a vast variety of cars, trucks, and motorcycles, I can't even remember them all
In 1982 I graduated with Masters degree in Engineering from Moscow Auto-Road Institute in Moscow, Russia. After that I served two years in Soviet Army as a commander of automotive platoon. This gave me some real life truck driving experience. After Army I worked for the State Automotive Research Institute in Moscow, Russia, from 1985 till 1993. My last job title there was Senior Research Engineer. I was researching combustion process of internal combustion engines, and also was creating and improving equipment and tools for combustion research.
Most of the time I drove in Moscow, Russia, which is very similar to New York by driving patterns and habits (I think most of really big cities are like this I had a chance to see Cairo, Egypt, and it reminded me about both of those giants). Second largest by the time or miles driven would be US - Washington, DC area, mostly Northern Virginia. And there were occasional trips and rentals in different cities and rural areas all over the world, including former Soviet Union, Turkey, Hungary, Thailand, US Eastern coast (all the way from DC to Key West and back to Niagara Falls), and even Island of Cyprus (did you know they drive on the left side of the road? I survived, and even did not do any damage neither to the rented car, nor to others
).
My last accident happened in 2003 in Washington, DC, when I did not manage to dodge the car, which turned left from the right lane. The only excuse that I have is that I just returned from a trip to Egypt and was heavily jet-lagged. My last at-fault accident happened in 1997 in Moscow, Russia. This time I was turning to the main road, following another car, and due to the lack of traffic on the main road did not expect this car to stop completely. However, it did stop, and I hit its bumper at around 2 mph speed or so. Other than that, I did not have any accident for the last probably 12 years. I had my share of accidents when I was young, but I never was involved in an accident with somebody killed or seriously injured.
I routinely drive 90-100 mph on divided highways, and routinely drive 5-15 mph on local residential lanes. I get one speeding ticket in two years, on average, and pay $600 per half a year to insure all three of my family's cars (two Civics and Murano).
I taught my former and current wives and my older son how to drive, and no one of them ever had an accident with serious injury or death. No injuries at all for that matter during 20 plus years of their combined driving. My former wife and my older son still drive in Moscow, Russia and this is like driving on Manhattan, or even harder. And everybody, including me, really enjoys driving. We all just love it!
