<p>Calmom: I get the feeling that you really just want to vent about the fact that some of your daughter’s friends don’t have driver’s licenses and you think they should have them. Okay–and I agree with you completely. </p>
<p>But unless you’re willing to teach them… I don’t think there’s anything you can do about it.</p>
<p>dmd77… no… I asked a question, which was: at what age do these kids typically learn how to drive, if ever (and how do they go about doing this). Several posters gave helpful answers. You seem to want to argue with me over what we are doing wrong (i.e., my daughter should tell her friends no, her friends should ride the bus or change plans, we should teach them to drive). None of this has anything to do with the question I asked. </p>
<p>You seemed to have a very defensive reaction to the question, which I don’t understand – since you also mentioned that your own daughter does have a license – so presumably did learn to drive at some time in her life.</p>
<p>“–the lack of ability to drive is a huge limitation on lifestyle choices.”</p>
<p>Well, obviously your daughter’s friends don’t feel that way, but they will probably get their licenses when something dictates a necessity. For me, it was the need to get away from home!</p>
<p>But getting back to that quote, the truth of it is exactly why I don’t live in the suburbs.</p>
<p>Except these young adults aren’t living self-sufficient lives in which they get from place to place on their own – they are simply solving their transportation problem by expecting other people (friends, parents) to drive them wherever they want to go.</p>
<p>Cartera- good point, my kids grew up in CA where they had pools, neighbors had pools, and they swam on swim team "everybody’ could swim…as we went further north we have been amazed at the number of kids who cannot swim!</p>
<p>D3 does not have license yet, to the dismay of her sister’s; though she is ready, and has a permit, next snow free break she will get her license. I do not understant kids at 20 not wanting to be able to have that independence. My kids all give gas money for any ride, because they drive and understand the cost, the city kids you mention are clueless!</p>
<p>This thread makes me laugh. I have a friend who lives central city, and the family of four only has one car. One time, she asked me to pick her up (not convenient) on my way to somewhere as she wanted to “reduce her carbon footprint.” Uh, by increasing mine?</p>
<p>The professor dh bikes to work, and she spends her life shuffling the kids to and from school and activities, never making them take the bus.</p>
<p>When will your dd’s friends learn to drive? When they HAVE to. Right now, they’ve got mom and your dd to cart them around, so why bother? Growing up in Texas, I can’t imagine not driving, or not wanting to drive, as a teen-ager.</p>
<p>I got my license at age 28.</p>
<p>I was living in Cambridge, MA at the time, which, of course, has great access to public transportation.</p>
<p>My motivating factor was that I was engaged and about to move to the suburbs. I paid for a driving instructor to teach me. I don’t recall actually taking that many driving lessons. The driving instructor took me for my driving test and of course provided the car for same.</p>
<p>My father was the brave soul who actually drove with me on the Mass Turnpike for the first time (after I had my license, but before I had any significant driving experience).</p>
<p>fendrock, your story sounds like mine. I took about 6 hours of lessons in NYC as an adult, passed my test, and was let loose on the world. Needless to say, it was about a year before I was anything near a competent driver, particularly at high speeds. I’m terrific in city traffic, though. :)</p>
<p>Second all that Sybbie said as a fellow NYer, and what I see here is people discouraging their kids from driving because that extra parking space costs the same as an apartment in most cities!</p>
<p>Calmom: this is the answer I gave to your question:</p>
<p>“And to answer your question: city non-drivers may a) never get a license (I have 50-something friends in that category), b) get a license when they feel the need (having children sent some over the edge), or c) when they don’t have to be on their parents insurance any more.”</p>
<p>I understand that the safety questions and public transit questions I raised were outside of your original question, but that’s in the great tradition of CC: changing and expanding the subject.</p>
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<p>I’m 23 and don’t have it yet. I live near Boston, so this works out fine. I run or walk to work, and walk, bike, or take public transportation most places - the only time I <em>need</em> to be driven anywhere is if people are going on a trip somewhere beyond the reach of public transit, in which case we’re carpooling anyway because it would be silly to take a car for each person. I really resent the implication that I am stuck in childhood/not an adult.</p>
<p>This is not a particularly friendly area for cars, in any case - parking is expensive and often difficult to find, and the local road system is notoriously difficult to navigate. Also, most of the drivers are maniacs.</p>
<p>I know that I should learn to drive anyway, just to have the skill, but I will be honest: I am afraid of it. I do not understand why more people are not afraid of it, and really, the fact that teenagers usually seem to be so excited about the freedom without being bothered by the frightening implications scares me more, because I would be sharing the roads with these people. You are in control of a multi-ton lethal weapon and innocent people can die if you make a simple mistake. At this point, I <em>want</em> to learn to drive, because it worries me that if I needed to in an emergency I wouldn’t be able to, but metro Boston is not an especially friendly area for newbie drivers, for the reasons that I stated above (confusing roads, lunatic drivers). I probably want lessons from a professional.</p>
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<p>I felt the same way when I learned to drive at 28, and maintain this view many years later.</p>
<p>It’s also difficult to learn to drive without a need to drive every day, at least for a while. Taking driving lessons and getting a license is only the first step, and if you don’t absolutely have to drive, it is hard to push oneself beyond the fear factor.</p>
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I’d say that is matter of definition … it seems they can get rides when they need them so one could argue they are self-sufficent (they can get to where they want go without excessive hassle (to them)). To your original question … I’d guess they will get a license when it is more convenient to them to have one. Having grown up in northern NE and then lived in the burbs of a major city the idea of not having a license is foreign to me also. That said I now essentially live in Boston right on the public transportation system … one of my nephews (who lives very near) didn’t get his license until he was 23-24 and now lives in NY and still has never owned a car (he is 35 now). My oldest is going to get her license at 18 1/2 not because she needs it (she’s going to college in NYC) but just because she thinks it makes sense to get one … she easily could go at least 4 more years without a license. </p>
<p>Personally I like the freedom that comes with a license … but I certainly understand folks in an urban enironment not feel any need to learn to drive.</p>
<p>We live in CA where almost all the kids get their license when they turn 16. We do not have good public transportation in our city (San Diego) so my D (now 17) got her license at 16. She is a junior in HS but planning to go to college in the east where she will not have a car. She does not have a car of her own, but uses mine as needed. We told her that she will not have a car in college as she will probably be in a city.</p>
<p>One of my friends Ds started college in the fall and last year when she was a hs senior she still did not have her license. I talked to my friend and suggested she have her D get her license before going to college just in case of an emergency that she needed to drive. Her D is at a UC campus here in CA.</p>
<p>We live in a suburban/semi-rural town with no public transportation. My S took driver’s ed, but not being terribly motivated to drive didn’t get around to taking the test before his permit expired. We live within walking distance of the HS. When his friends decide to go somewhere, one of them usually picks him up, or we drop him off at the house where they are gathering and one of them brings him home when the group breaks up. Now he’s a freshman in college, so it is to some extent a moot point.</p>
<p>Frankly, I’d like him to get his license, but haven’t pushed for it because a) since he no longer has a learner’s permit he can’t practice, and b) the enormous expense of insuring an underage male driver. Maybe he’ll get it this summer, if he is at home and we are still here. And I will teach him to drive a stick shift, so that he can drive our ancient Escort, rather than the decent car. ;)</p>
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<p>Yeah, that’s another concern. If I got a license, I would rarely use it. And then what would happen when I tried to drive with my rusty skills?</p>
<p>To feel comfortable with driving privileges, I would probably have to schedule a practice drive for myself every so often, in order to keep my skills at a level where I would actually consider it ethical for me to be operating a car on the roads. I seriously doubt that I would get a reasonable amount of practice naturally.</p>
<p>I’m wondering what happens to these non drivers when they get their first jobs. Many will require that they be comfortable hopping into a rental car in a new place with ease.</p>
<p>Booklady & Fendrock - you’ve raised a concern that troubled me. In general, I would think adults are more equipped mentally to exercise good judgment as drivers… but the law in our state requires teenagers to have a lot of behind-the-wheel practice over an extended period of time before getting their license. So while they still have teenage brains and all the problems that come with it… they have had a lot more time to develop the motor skills that go along with driving before they are set loose on their own in traffic. I know that adults can pay for private lessons – but I remember those lessons as being kind of expensive – so learning to drive for a 20-something could be an expensive proposition.</p>
<p>I have two elderly aunts who never learned to drive and they have relied on the goodness of friends and family their entire lives to get them everywhere they need to be because they live in the middle of nowhere with no form of public transportation. Kind things have not always been said on the way to pick them up or drop them off - bless their hearts. They both said the meant to get their licenses but the longer they waited, the more fearful they became - so be warned.</p>
<p>The real problem, if there is one (and I don’t think people not wanting to learn to drive qualifies), is that there are not enough transportation options outside of cities. I hate what the automobile has done to the landscape of this country – no more viable town centers, no front porches (just that closed garage door), suburban developments, towns without a single sidewalk, etc. (This was really brought home to me during college visits where we would often be staying at a motel on a busy strip. You had to get in the car to cross the road to get to the Starbucks or whatever.) Instead of worrying and complaining about people who don’t or can’t drive (like my elderly mother-in-law who is now stuck in her house), we should be demanding more public transportation everywhere, for everyone. If there was more Amtrak train service, for example, I’d never drive.</p>