Teenage Drivers

[Eluder]

Heh, exactly. It’s compounded by Mrs. Seano arguing that not having to be parental Uber drivers (practices etc.) needs to be considered.....Fuck it, I’m officially day drinking.

Just remember that you did this to yourself.

[concretejungle]

mind boggling to me that a 22 year old can't drive. Not trying to be rude, but is it ineptness? Or just liking the no vehicle lifestyle?

In the case of my partner's 20 year old I think he just liked the no vehicle lifestyle. In his case I think it was easier to have his parents shoulder the chore of driving him around. He's not very social so his normal impact was only a ride or two to a friends house to play D&D. It became an issue once he took a semester off and had to get a job since he wasn't in school.

I think if you pass through late teen years without driving it gets much harder to learn. I know a family with 3 kids and the oldest waited until 22 to learn to drive for whatever reason and it took him 5 attempt s to pass his driving test. The funny thing is the youngest sibling took him to take his test multiple times.

I'm not sure how many times my partner's oldest took the test but he didn't pass it on his first try. The 16 year old did and already has a part time job. The older one just got in a car wreck because he failed to yield.

I had to take an outside school drivers ed class and drive with an instructor before I could drive with my parents for a set amount of time before I could get a real license and even then I think there were restrictions on hours and who could ride with me. I believe the time with my parents was 3 months. I learned to drive stick on my stepdad's GTI. I stalled it going down hill about a half block from home. I said fuck it and walked home knowing that the punishment was not driving for a set amount of time. The next time we went out I picked it up pretty quickly but I was so defeated that first time.

[riser4]

My daughter was terrified of driving and wanted to grow and live somewhere that she didn't need a car. We forced her to learn and drive a MT. Otherwise she would be a non-driving 22yo at this moment. It took a lot of work and patience. She's happy she can drive but still hates driving. She drove 3.5 hrs down to NH by herself and stayed in a motel for work last spring. It went fine. Thank Dog for Google.

[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

I do have to say covid was a saving grace when it came to the boy getting good time behind the wheel. Even though he got his license, he needed a lot of behind the wheel practice, and not just driving around Bobcat stadium over and over with me in the shotgun seat.

Last spring when covid hit hard, he started door dashing and it was perfect. Everyone was sheltering and ordering in, and he was basically getting paid to practice on empty roads. Win!

[PassTheDutchie]

Circling back to the first post... When I was a kid driving my parents' cars, it was made abundantly clear to me that my driving privileges were dependent on my driving responsibly. When I got my first ticket, I lost my privileges for an entire summer. Actions have consequences, lesson learned.

[NW_SKIER]

The key to teaching your kids to drive is to get them started young. My dad had me out in the quiet back roads driving manual transmission when I was around 12 years old. Hauling hay by 14. Legal? Nope. But I learned the responsibility side of driving before I was old enough to think cars were for fucking off in. It probably also helped that he threatened to beat my ass if he ever caught me screwing around or speeding in his trucks.

[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

Pretty common for ranch and farm kids to be driving at 12 years old here in Montana, but that's not around other cars and stop lights and signs and shit.

[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

One time I was working on campus here and I was alone and I had to get some shit up to the roof. It was pretty deserted so I loaded up the Telehandler and moved the load up to the roof and ran up there to unload it. I didn't put up any caution tape and sure enough class let out and suddenly a bunch of clueless college kids were walking under the boom and load and fucking christ this could be bad.

I caught the eye of a buckled up ranch girl walking by and jokingly called down "hey, can you move that forklift for me?". She didn't hesitate and replied, "where you want it?".

[Peruvian]

When my daughter totaled the car we were sued 3 years later for $1mil. My rates from State Farm didn't go up and they paid me 15% more than Blue Book for the totaled car. I don't know what the settlement ended up being. We just got sued for $1.5 mil on a 3 year old accident (wife fault) so here we go again. Zoom trial by judge next month. Guy is claiming back problems after 3 years of posting his mountain climbing and white water kayaking trips around the world in social media. A local Dewey Cheatem & Howe got to him.

This is why insurance premiums are so high. I’ll bet your carrier will be in for $40-50k in defense costs alone through trial, plus whatever the settlement or verdict is.

As for Seano and his daughters, I have 21 and 23 yo daughters. The oldest totaled a car within 6 months of getting her license. We told her that it was on her to replace it or she could find rides. She got extra shifts at her job that summer and she had to do without for a little while.

[wooley12]

Maybe. For 57 years I paid, and still pay a little more for State Farm than I could have for the cheapest available so I that goes into the pool. My agent said the company saved more by offering sweetened total loss money than it cost to have a department of people handling the value negotiations. Our 2 accidents were 25 years apart and maybe things have change. The only thing that they had in common was a last minute lawsuit asking for the total amount of my coverage.

Now when I was a teen driver in a Corvair built like a tank I got hit about 4 times. Back then they'd send me a check for repair and I'd use the money for the next premium payment. I'd pay out of pocket for a can of Bondo and a sixer.

[Buzzworthy]

My 16yo can’t be bothered to drive, nowhere to go...
Has not progressed beyond the learner’s permit

Same boat. Mine turned 16 a month ago and let her permit expire. She’s all academia and driving is just not a focus. And the nowhere to go thing is very real. Kid is depressed bad and it sucks to see that as a father.

[yeahman]

Nowhere to go? Weird. Not the case with my kids at all. School, work, study with friends, Target, Starbucks, you name it. I know some places are more shut down than us, but still. That's sad to hear.

My SIL (now 50) is one of those people who never learned to drive when young. As a result she never got comfortable with it and has been mooching rides her whole life. And she has three kids!! So annoying. Force your kids to learn to drive. Don't take no for an answer.

[BCMtnHound]

Sad truth is that when I was between 15 and 25, not everyone in my community and age group survived driving, including some that weren't under the influence. Scares the fuck out of me when I hear my 8yo talk about where and what she will be and do around that age.

Should she pass my driver's ed, she will get a manual transmission in an underpowered economy vehicle, probably of Japanese or Korean design. My apology to XXXer's people, but they've got the track record on keeping the driving incompetent mostly alive.

[seano732]

Just remember that you did this to yourself.

What does that even mean? Fuck off and take a lap, dickhead.

[yeahman]

Sad truth is that when I was between 15 and 25, not everyone in my community and age group survived driving, including some that weren't under the influence. Scares the fuck out of me when I hear my 8yo talk about where and what she will be and do around that age.

QFT. Four kids in Billings, all from the same high school, just got in a rollover wreck last week. Three died. Icy road, going too fast. Brutal for the community.

When I was teaching my oldest to drive I made a point of constantly pointing out the dangers of ice and hardpack snow. I actually made her brake hard and take turns too fast in safe situations so she could see how easy it is to slide. They gotta know how tenuous the grip on the road is in those conditions.

[old goat]

When our son was in HS he and some friends were supposed to go climb Shasta in the fall of senior year. Something came up and he had to bail. His two friends drove up from Sacramento, started climbing in the middle of the night, summited, came down, and drove back to make soccer practice, the driver fell asleep and hit an SUV head on. Both kids were killed. It's not always drinking and raising hell.