Once a teen rite of passage, getting a drivers license not important to many now

Parent Cafe
1

<p>Neither of my sons (current ages 25, 21) was eager to learn to drive. For that matter, neither were my husband or I. I didn’t start driving until I was 24</p>

<p>"Federal data released Friday underscore a striking national shift: 30.7 percent of 16-year-olds got their licenses in 2008, compared with 44.7 percent in 1988. The difference is even sharper in Virginia and Maryland, state figures show. Numbers from the District, which go back to 2003, show a decline in the past two years.</p>

<p>“Driving is real important to a lot of the kids in the culture, but it is not the central focus like it was 25 years ago,” said Tom Pecoraro, owner of I Drive Smart, a Washington area drivers’ education program, who added that plenty of his students are older teens. “They have so many other things to do now,” he said, and, with years of being shuttled to sports, lessons and play dates, “kids are used to being driven.”</p>

<p>A generation consumed by Facebook and text-messaging, by Xbox Live and smartphones, no longer needs to climb into a car to connect with friends. And although many teens are still eager to drive, new laws make getting a license far more time-consuming, requiring as many as 60 supervised driving practice hours with an adult.</p>

<p>Rob Foss, director of the Center for the Study of Young Drivers at the University of North Carolina, and others suggest that these “graduated” state licensing systems – which have created new requirements for learner’s permits, supervised practice hours, night driving and passengers in the car – are responsible for much of the decline in the number of licensed 16-year-olds. At the same time, drivers’ education has been cut back in some public schools, so families must scrounge up money – often $300 to $600 – for private driving schools.</p>

<p>Then there is car insurance and gas, expenses that make driving too costly for some families and a stretch for others…"</p>

<p>[Teens</a> are in no rush to drive - Washington Post- msnbc.com](<a href=“http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35042557/ns/us_news-washington_post/]Teens”>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35042557/ns/us_news-washington_post/)</p>

2

<p>Yep. I’ve got a 17 year old S with no permit yet. He has nowhere he wants to go. I’m going to push him to get his license this summer so he can have a year of practice before going off to college, but for now he’s saving me a lot on insurance! Now my D couldn’t wait to get her permit - we had to go on her 16th birthday and test exactly 6 months later.</p>

3

<p>I think a lot depends on the personality of the kid, and on the area where you live.</p>

<p>When our kids were growing up, we lived in the suburbs of a city that had no public transportation to speak of. Consequently, most (though not all…) teens were driving by their junior year of HS. In the cities with good public transportation and no parking space I think it is very different.</p>

4

<p>My kids are suburban kids who go to high school in a fairly urban area. Many of their classmates are from a dense metropolitan area. My kids got their learner’s permits the day after they turned 16 and have been driving for 2 years. Many of their city friends don’t drive. They have great public transportation.</p>

5

<p>I agree about access to public transportation. If you come from a community where there isn’t good access to rail or a well run bus system, than driving is much more important for those kids. </p>

<p>Getting to jobs, sports, extracurricular activities is a harder challenge without transportation.</p>

6

<p>All three of mine got their licenses on their 16th birthday, as did I. There is very little and poor public transportation here and if they want to get somewhere it has to be in a car.</p>

<p>On the other hand, my nephews didn’t get a license until they were at least 17 and it’s looking like that for my niece as she’s just taking driver’s ed now and turned 16 in December. I think they bummed rides off friends or their parents, but IMHO that’s a bad way to learn to drive. I wanted mine to have a permit as drive as long as possible that way.</p>

7

<p>Ditto to it depending on where you live. We have absolutely no public transportation where we live (no bus, no train, no tram, nothing). Both my kids got their licenses when they turned 16. The vast majority of teens here do the same. I, on the other hand, am from a place with a lot of public transportation. I was in my mid to late 20s when I got my license but, living in London, I found it more practical to use public transportation so I never actually drove again once I got my license until I moved here. (I still don’t drive when I go back to England).</p>

8

<p>May daughter just turned sixteen and plans to get her license this week. She doesn’t have a car, so I don’t know what the rush is, but she is very focused on it. No public transportation to speak of here.</p>

9

<p>I had been worried that my 17 year old shows no interest but feel a bit relieved that he is more mainstream than I had thought. He says it takes too much time (in our state - many hours of classroom time plus 30-40 hours driving time) and that he has other things to focus on - true! He also knows that he is not getting a car and even if he did it would be just to go to school where he hangs with friends (he is day student at day/boarding school). That said, like others we want him to have some practice driving before he heads out into the world so we are “forcing” him to take a course in June when school is out.</p>

10

<p>I like the idea of helping our kids to drive while they are still home. I can make the rule of no cell phones, ipods or other people in the car while they are learning. Because all my kids are (or will be) 17 when they go to college, learning how to drive then becomes much more complicated.</p>

<p>Driving in So Cal can be difficult. They need all the practice they can get - including the classroom and real world experience - to deal with the idiot drivers out there!</p>

11

<p>My younger son got his license a year after he was eligible to take his test. He was not focused on it and we did not want to spend the money on the extra auto insurance, or have that extra risk of an accident. Also, he was not going to get his own car. </p>

<p>We did want him to practice driving and have a license before leaving home to go to college, so he recently took his driver’s test.</p>

12

<p>Living in Southern California, where public transportation is practically non-existent, its essential for 16 year olds to get their licenses as soon as possible. Some don’t, but the majority do. The day each of my kids got their license was a great day for me - they were able to drive themselves to their assorted activities finally!</p>

13

<p>That article isn’t true around here! When you live out in the country, you want to drive. All the kids I know get their permits at 15 and license the day they turn 16.</p>

14

<p>I got my license a few months after turning 17. It was only because I wanted to be a really good & confident driver so I would be less likely to get in an accident & have to pay sky high insurance fees though. So I was an expert on highway and dirt road driving and parking before I took the test. At my school I’d say it’s MOSTLY the opposite-everyone get’s a license at 16 and a half.</p>

15

<p>My 16 and a half year old son has had his permit for almost a year. He’s completed the drivers ed requirements. My wife and I have made a stipulation that he needs to go out on the freeway with one of us during rush hour for at least a half hour before we will take him to DMV for drivers test and license. We’re leaving it to him to say, “lets go drive on the freeway”. He just isn’t in a hurry. Too much other stuff to do. I’m fine with it. Plus, I’d rather not fork over for insurance right now.</p>

16

<p>I saw this article in the WaPost this AM. I live in the DC suburbs and it’s not true where I live. D was driving as soon as she was able as were almost all of her friends. Most students in our HS have a car junior and senior year. It might be different if there were more public transportation here. D is now in college in NYC and loves being able to walk or take the subway everywhere.</p>

17

<p>My S didn’t take his test until he was 18 after renewing his permit once. Even now, with his license and pretty easy-going parents, he will take the bus instead of driving so that he doesn’t need to worry about parking (or putting $$$ in the gas tank). His city school provides bus passes to the kids instead of the yellow school buses so most of the kids are in no hurry to take that test. There is no parking for students at the school so except for special occasions he can not drive to school.</p>

18

<p>I wonder whether part of the difference is that fewer high schools teach driver ed now. Students have to make a commitment to a driver’s ed course outside of school, and scheduling it around the student’s other activities is often difficult. These courses can also cost a substantial amount of money. Also, many states have the additional requirement of many hours of practice driving with a licensed driver before the student can take the road test.</p>

<p>I remember taking the classroom portion of driver ed in school. I could also have taken the behind-the-wheel portion there, but the timing was bad, so I went to a commercial driving school – for a total of 6 hours of lessons.</p>

<p>My kids had to take 30 hours of classroom driver ed and 6 hours of behind-the-wheel driver ed at a commercial driving school, plus 40 hours of behind-the-wheel practice with a licensed driver (my husband or me) for the first kid and 60 for the second (the state upped the requirement). This is a much greater commitment of out-of-school time than what i had to do.</p>

19

<p>I’m 19 and have a permit, but I have never driven. Insurance and parking fees would cost a lot and even though public transportation is poor outside of my university, I manage very well. A lot of things are less than a mile off campus and when I go home, I just tag along on errands. For those kids who don’t want to take drivers ed or have specific driving requirements before you get a license, just wait until you are 18. All I have to do after having taken the written test for my permit is to schedule, take, and pass the driving test. Theoretically, one could even pass the test having never driven before (don’t try this).</p>

<p>What I do need to remind people is that teenagers do need picture ID, be it a passport, passport card, drivers license, permit, or even a state ID card. Not having one of these makes the process of getting another ID even more difficult, not to mention all the times when one needs to prove their identity.</p>

20

<p>We live in a small town in a rural part of the state, but still here it seems commonplace for students to put off getting a permit/license. I was hoping my son would wait because we simply couldn’t make additional insurance payments. But many of his friends put it off, too. I told him when he was 17 if he wanted to take the written test and get his permit we could do that, and I got him the rules-of-road book to study, but he was so busy with other things that he never did it. Then I thought, well as long as he learns to drive before leaving for college, that’s fine. But he was just never motivated to spend time on it and he left for college without a license. He’s a sophomore now, and still doesn’t drive. He says there’s really no point just now because he doesn’t have a car anyway, lives on campus, and goes to school in another small town, so no where to go really that you cannot walk to. He has friends with cars, and occasionally goes places with them.</p>

<p>My daughter is 17, also a college sophomore, also doesn’t drive. Her college ID card gets her free access to all the buses in her college town. She seems to have no motivation to drive either.</p>

<p>I don’t know… at this point what they decide to do about driving is entirely up to them. I have no dog in this hunt anymore. They won’t be getting a car from us, and their insurance and other costs will be their own. I think at this point they’d just rather spend their money on other things.</p>