To anyone else, the parking lot in White Marsh looks empty.

But the young woman, just 16, sees an obstacle course of concrete islands, narrow parking spaces and a treacherous slope to negotiate. Seat belt fastened, she pulls the car's shift toward drive. Her instructor reminds her to turn on the engine.

"Yes," she says, nervously, turning the key. "Just kidding."

The first mistake is out of the way. He smiles. The car moves slowly forward.

Carolyn Bozman is learning to drive.

She makes her first turn, exhaling, as she passes the curb with a wide swing.

This lesson has been given countless times, on millions of empty parking lots. Dads yelling at sons. Instructors with clipboards in their laps, telling 16-year-olds to push lightly on the gas pedal. The rookies sweat, hearts pounding - their freedom, their egos, their plans for Saturday night with pals - all of it at stake.

Veteran drivers forget how long it took to get used to the rhythm of gas and brake, how confusing the four-way stop once seemed, how much they once wished the road were wider, how unnatural it feels to turn the steering wheel and then let it slide back into place.

"I was worried," Carolyn confesses. "My mother, she was more, 'Go, Go, Carolyn. Turn it, turn it!"

A Jeep Cherokee pulls in and parks by a playground. Carolyn slows. The stakes have gone up a notch.

A few more laps. Another car pulls up next to the Cherokee.

Carolyn's arm muscles tighten. "I'm not liking these cars," she says.

The car is moving a little too fast on that last curve for her instructor, Mike Psenicska. "Control your speed," he says, kindly.

"A couple more times," Psenicska tells her. "We'll take you out into the real world."

"Am I driving?" she asks, incredulous.

"You are," he deadpans. "I know how to drive."

While many of the emotions - and stress - of this situation seem universal and timeless, chances are things have changed since many drivers passed their tests. You can't even get your license when you turn 16 anymore.

In Maryland, drivers have to be 16 years and three months before they go solo in a car. And rookie drivers spend six months practicing with a "mentor," usually a parent, in addition to formal lessons.

Since 1999, Maryland has had a graduated licensing system, offering first a learner's permit, then a provisional license and, finally, a driver's license without restrictions.

And last fall, the MVA added a requirement for those under age 16 to show proof they are attending school regularly.

Even when drivers earn their new driving freedom, they can forget the exhilaration of picking up pals. In the first five months, by Maryland law, provisional drivers can't carry passengers who are minors unless they're siblings or a supervising driver is in the car.

But some things never change.

At home, Carolyn's mother is relieved that a professional is doing the teaching.

"I wish she had even more time in the car with her instructor," says Carol Bozman, who has survived teaching one teenager, her older daughter, to drive.

"It's an odd feeling to be in the passenger seat," she says. "You just think you're going off into a ditch any minute and mow down all the mailboxes. It's unnerving."

But Psenicska has what all parents wish they had, as they set off in search of empty parking lots and wide residential streets, their children in the driver's seats. Nerves of steel? Better. A brake on the passenger side.

As Carolyn pulls out of the parking lot at the White Marsh park, her instructor tells her, "Trust me. I'm not going to let you make a mistake."

The sky is still gray on this Thursday morning. The sun is up, but screened by a sky of white clouds. Commuters are clogging the highways, but traffic is still light in the northeast Baltimore County suburbs of Perry Hall and White Marsh.

"Watch your speed," says Psenicska. "It's only 40 mph here."

"Great. I'm already speeding," Carolyn says, sounding distraught. "I wasn't expecting to get out on the road the first time."

They twist and turn in the four-door sedan through a neighborhood that the Perry Hall Driving School instructor favors because of its hills.

The route isn't a favorite of Carolyn's. "I hate hills," she says.

A former Loch Raven High School math teacher, Psenicska seems to know every cul-de-sac, every parking lot, and, almost always, someone who knows someone the student might have as a teacher or classmate.

Psenicska is a 30-year-veteran, having given his first driving lessons when he had four children at home. He's been retired from the classroom for more than a decade, even took the summer off from driving lessons, after his unwitting appearance in the Borat movie. But he was bored. You can only play so much golf.

In some ways, Psenicska is a local celebrity because of the film. He's been stopped at burger joints, posed for pictures with students, and once was asked to autograph a teenager's wrist at high school football game.

Carolyn doesn't go ga-ga, but at another lesson she asks him about the film. And she admits she tells friends about her instructor, adding, "I thought it was pretty cool."

Right now, though, there's no time for Hollywood chit-chat. A construction worker is standing in the road up ahead. Carolyn is immediately suspicious. "Did you know he'd be there?" she asks.

Psenicska wasn't aware of the work zone when he mapped out the practice route. But this - a real situation requiring quick judgment - is why driving lessons are so important, he says later.

"Very good," he tells Carolyn as they pass the orange cones.

"It was a little scary," she admits.

The lesson, nearly two hours long, ends without incident.

Carolyn is on track to take the test to get her driver's license this month, but would like to delay it until she can get a car.

Her parents both have cars, but they use them during the day. So she couldn't borrow a car to drive from her home in Bel Air to Kingsville for her classes at Redeemer Classical Christian School, where she is a junior.

She says "there's no point in taking in the test until I have a car."

laura.barnhardt@baltsun.com

Try it yourself

Want to see how you'd fare under today's standards for drivers?

Take the timed "practice" written Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration exam at http:--mva.state.md.us/DriverServ/ROOKIE DRIVER/tutorial/Tutorial_intro.html