Second Life, a place where one can fly and go from point to point instantly, is still full of vehicles. Here's a pathetic picture of Iggy driving, as a noob, on the old Orientation Island's go-cart track (no longer a part of the orientation--pity).

I've come a ways as a driver since then.  My usual ride is a Dominus Shadow, a virtual muscle-car modeled on the classic 65-67 Mustang.  It cost me about $10 US--the most I've ever spent in SL. Yet it gives good performance (I love driving games). I use it to explore SL's highway network and to race other speed-freaksundefined.

You will see cars, motorcycles, helicopters, and other vehicles parked all over.  But don't try jumping in. If you right-click a vehicle, you'll see "drive" as an option.  Great, right? Not so fast...unless you own  a vehicle or the owner sets permissions, you'll be told, when trying to drive, to "get your own car" or something similar.

Luckily, some free vehicles can be found for beginners and I will provide some locations where they can be driven. It's bad form to deliberately cause accidents (and can get you banned from an area). 

Here Jezz Enoch gets ready to tear up the dirt-track with her "slightly used" Chevy Nova.

Learning to drive is not as easy as it sounds. I use my keyboard, not a wheel or a mouse, and these keys are common for most vehicles:

Pgup: shifts one gear up in multi-geared vehicles (look out--high gears and curves do not go together)

Pgdown: shifts one gear down

Left/right/up/down arrows: moves the vehicle. You can combine them: L arrow and up makes a left turn.

Many vehicles can fly!  On such vehicles, they'll enter "flight mode" if you press the up and down arrow-keys at the same time.  Press them again and your ride will be a ground-car again. Do not do this at 30,000 feet...

If you and a car fall on someone in a well policed region you will probably be banned and may be reported to the company for abuse!   So drive (or fly) responsibly!

Just keep in mind that the physics of driving in SL are nowhere near as evolved in games dedicated to that. Still, the company is building a highway grid and promises better performance. Track-racing is also quite good, in my experience. No mere game would allow Star-Wars pod-racers, 1960s muscle-cars, Martian war machines, and M1-Abrams tanks on the same track.

Scavenger Hunt Bonus: Find a racetrack and post a snapshot to our Koinup group...with our without a ride. The first student to post a picture and notify me gets 50L.