<p>Does your driving test actually still require “parallel parking”??? None of my kids actually had to parallel park - instead they had to do “maneuverability” with the orange cones. </p>
<p>In CA new drivers (under 18) need to have a certain number of hours with a professional driving instructor. If I remember correctly, ours did three sessions: one fresh off the written test, one in the middle and one right before the driving test (where they drove the route usually taken). Money well spent.</p>
<p>Hopeful820, we have similar family dynamics… DH was just too intense for the kids so I was the default parent-instructor. Sigh. But if we went somewhere together, the driver-in-training drove. I’m sure that if I miss my next hair appointment it would be snow white. DD was sure she would fail and was mentally prepared for it. She actually did fine and passed with no problems. For both my kids, they didn’t need to parallel park – just back up. As long as they didn’t hit the curb they were fine. </p>
<p>I do think it’s a good idea to get a driver’s license sooner than later. That way the new driver can drive in comfortable situations before they are forced into a brutal work-hour commute or driving in poor weather that requires a more experienced driver. (Again, coming from CA where a car in usually a necessity.)</p>
<p>None have failed… but that is because the word has gotten out which companies in the area like to fail kids and we all try to avoid those now. My kids haven’t gotten any tickets yet, but 2 have slid into trees on our private drive. Last month we had a lot of snow, so when son was going out I told him to take his dad’s Suburban. Comes home and encounters snow plow coming the other way (plow is half a football field away) so he hits brakes and slides into the same tree his brother did a year earlier with my car. He comes in house and I ask if he hit the tree and he says he just brushed it and it can be buffed out. H, who is out of the state calls and I tell him what happened and decide to walk out to our other garage to see the scrape. Huge dent…kid says just take a hammer from the other side and bang it out!! Ugh! Luckily we have friends who own a body shop, but gosh this is getting embarrassing. Same kid wrecks mirror on Suburban backing it out of garage and has a spill that leads to all the carpet being replaced. They have had a couple more mishaps with our cars in the driveway…never with the cars we buy for them!!<br>
Your child may not pass on the first try but will probably never have an accident. Mine can’t seem to keep it together on our own driveway!</p>
<p>Yes, 2 of my (book smart) sons failed both their permit tests AND their road tests. They were allowed to retake the permit tests immediately and passed on the 2nd try. The driving tests they went back and passed the next morning. They were embarrassed and discouraged, but since both had permits about to expire, I made them go back and try again immediately.<br>
They were both over 18 1/2, out of high school, not at all enthusiastic about driving. Never had to drive during high school, and were reluctant to learn. I “forced” them to get licenses before college. They didn’t practice much. The older one is now driving back and forth long distance to out of state college. They do grow up eventually. One daughter failed permit test so badly (she did study for it) that she wasn’t allowed to retake it right away. She hasn’t gone back. She is nearly 16 and says she never wants to drive. Her sister passed road test at 14 after having a permit for a about 2 months (this was allowed at that time in the state where we used to live. I do think it was an easy test.)
My cousin’s kid actually had an accident during her driving test. She was just pulling out of the parking space at the beginning of the test and crashed into another car! Yes, she passed the next time.</p>
<p>Does your D know exactly what is on the road test? Perhaps some of her friends can show her the likely route (where I live, they take a similar route, look for the same things every time.) and she can drive around it the day before the test to practice.</p>
<p>I cried before I took my driving test. My twin sister had just passed, and I was afraid she would pass and I would fail.
Then I passed. I was so happy, I cried again. We were barely 16 and the roads were solid ice when we tested.</p>
<p>S who was NMS failed the road test twice, quite to his embarrassment. First time had an issue with parallel parking and second time scraped the curb. I do think that it made him a little more careful and humble, not a bad thing at all. There is an organization called Driver’s Edge that does a half day free driver’s training program that I would recommend. In addition after failing we had him take a couple of classes with an outside driving instructor, which seemed to give him more confidence. So far no tickets or accidents (at least as far as I know!)</p>
<p>None of mine failed it , but I strongly believe that our state ( NJ ) is horrible when it comes to driver’s ed and how to prepare young drivers for the road. There is way too much emphasis on the written part and next to nothing for the actual driving portion of the test. The test is just so basic and not on actual roads.
I know a lot of adults that have had driver’s licenses for many years , issued in other states that failed the written part of the test ( back when you were forced to take the test )
There are too many trick questions about blood alcohol levels when driving. How about stop playing games with numbers and have a zero tolerance for drinking and driving</p>
<p>Our HS has mandatory Drivers Ed for all sophomores and optional on-the-road instruction with one of the teachers. They give the driving test too, so the kids pretty much know what to expect when it comes test time. One of my kids still managed to fail the on-the-road test three times. He is not a big fan of driving four years later, and only drives a few times a year when he’s home from college. In our neighborhood, everyone teaches the kids parallel parking by putting trash cans as place markers on the road and you’ll see kids backing in and out, in and out until they get it. I can parallel park when there’s no pressure of traffic behind me and I have our small car, but that’s about it.</p>
<p>Oh boy - let’s see - my son had to take the written part twice and the driving part twice. My daughter had to take the written part 3 times and driving part once. (both insisted ‘common sense’ was enough to pass the written part) My son is the king of over thinking, when the test question asked, if a car behind you is overtaking you what do you do? He got stuck on over taking - thinking it was an fbi agent or an alien invasion - lol Picked he’d pull over. Then on the question if the train gates are down what do you do? We don’t live in an area with trains - but his grandparents live where coal trains can take 30 minutes to go by - so he picked “go around” because he meant, he’d go around through town and go somewhere else while the train went by - lol. </p>
<p>When I got my license they took the parallel parking part out of the test for a 6 month period. I never learned and to this day I really can’t parallel park. </p>
<p>My kids had to take a course at the community college that involved a driving piece and the instructor taught them to parallel park. That saved us all.</p>
<p>Parallel parking is no longer required in our state. Our county reinstituted driver’s ed (through a private company). It sure makes a difference. D had the 6 hour course and even though it’s only 6 hours it was a huge help. And cut down on insurance costs.</p>
<p>D passed the first time but probably shouldn’t have. Driving is not her forte although she is getting better at it. Now for a laugh with your coffee ~ one early morning before a big test I hear a loud crash and look at a 2nd floor window to see D backing out of the driveway while her front end is on the ground. Apparently it got caught on something and got ripped off. She gets scared from the noise, turns back towards the front of the car and while said car is still going backwards she takes out my flower hanger and several beach grass plants. The next day, she’s pulling out going forward and remembers she left her phone in the house, jumps out of the car and while running into the house the car is going down the driveway, YAH! I scream at her from the front door and she is able to CATCH the car and put it in park. When I said I couldn’t believe she had done that she informed us that it has happened several times…WTH?</p>
<p>My kids both failed the first time. My son didn’t care (he had not been in a hurry to get his license when he turned 16) but my daughter was livid, as the test was on her actual 16th birthday and she was really excited to drive her best friend to lunch later that day. She really thought her birthday was ruined–she had a really harsh adjudicator who auto-failed her for being too close to the car next to her as she backed out of the space. Getting in for the test here can take a long time but I somehow found a site that was open about an hour away and she took and passed it there a week later. </p>
<p>I am surprised that parallel parking isn’t required everywhere. Just because a kid might live in sprawling suburbia now, what if he or she moves to a city after graduation? And even in smaller cities, many downtown areas and shopping districts have on-street parking but not many lots. My daughter’s high school is urban and the kids have to fight for scarce parking on the street. She has learned the hard way about two-hour spots and how to roll the car after the police chalk the tires.</p>
<p>Ha, Sally, one D failed 3 times. Partially my fault as I taught her, after she missed regular drivers ed. Living in the Midwest, I had forgotten to teach her to park on a hill, among other deficiencies. They are tough here in our town, especially at certain testing sites. Other D failed once. I am rather a fan of a certain amount of humbling failure rather than chutzpa, when it comes to driving. </p>
<p>Kids are handicapped if they don’t know how to parallel park in certain parts of the country. However, it has not been on the driving test in my area, if a useful skill. </p>
<p>S1 failed twice before finally passing. The first time, it had snowed the night before, and although the roads were cleared, he got confused at an intersection where he was supposed to turn left and got into the opposing traffic’s lane thinking it was a turn lane. Automatic fail. The second time, he went too fast in a school zone, among other minor issues and failed again. That time, the examiner yelled at me for his mistakes. I just took it quietly altho I had never taken this kid out driving. That had been done by his instructor and DH. He finally passed on the third try.</p>
<p>S2 was much more careful, and we’d learned all the pitfalls in the exam route, so he passed on the first try.</p>
<p>great lakes mom, I think our kids may have failed at one of the same testing sites. :)</p>
<p>Teaching kids to drive (and getting comfortable with them being independent drivers) has been one of the most stressful parenting experiences I have lived through. And both my kids have had the “humbling failure” of minor accidents (my son’s was on the way to prom–yeah). A year after my daughter got her license and her first car she was in an accident that totaled her vehicle (not her fault) and we replaced it with a car with a manual transmission. Teaching a kid how to drive a stick shift is a whole other level of “fun.” This commercial came out around the same time and it really resonated with us…</p>
<p>Great commercial! You don’t even need the stick shift to have a hurry-jerky experience teaching teens to drive. My H sacrificed himself to do the earlier part of teaching, I just couldn’t handle it. But I put in a lot more hours after they got their permits. And then, as soon as they got their licenses they would rather have me drive so they could be free to text their friends. Gratitude!</p>
<p>Everyone should learn to parallel park and it probably needs to be on the driving test in every state in order to insure that. Ironically, you really need to learn if you live in a city, but if you live in a city you are less likely to need to drive at all since there will be good public transportation.</p>
<p>Good point, except for cities that don’t have good public transportation…and sadly, there are many of them.</p>
<p>I don’t understand the logic of taking parallel parking out of the driving test. It is not intuitive if you haven’t been taught how to do it. Same goes for parking on hills. I learned to drive in super-flat Florida but I still had to at least learn the rules about which way to leave the wheels turned, setting the parking brake, etc.</p>
<p>I also think it’s too bad that so few cars in the U.S. have a manual transmission any more. People who drive stick aren’t texting or putting on makeup at the same time. And if you want to drive in other countries, it’s a good skill to have.</p>
<p>I don’t drive a stick well, but I’ve done it when I had to. If they had been around more when I was growing up, I would have learned and that’s a better situation. A friend was looking to buy a new car with a stick and it seems the dealers only have them available for the really low end models. The Toyota Corolla with no power window or door locks for example. Where are the snazzy but affordable cars with a stick shift option? </p>
<p>I don’t know! Even a lot of sports cars come with automatic transmissions now, which I find sort of sad and funny at the same time.</p>
<p>S2 told me, right before his road test, that he was more nervous about that than he was about the SATs. </p>
<p>My kid failed once on parallel parking. Signed up right away and practiced parallel parking nonstop for about 3 hours. Passed without a hitch on the second try.</p>