<p>I was “given” a car at 17, I guess. My dad has to drive for work, so he goes through cars pretty quickly…every 4-5 years or so, maybe. So his last car died when I was about 15-16 or so and he bought a new one, with the idea that it was going to be my car when I got my license and he was going to buy another new car. It’s still registered in his name and I’m still on my parents’ insurance, but I was able to drive it whenever and think of it as “my” car and not an extra family car when I turned 17.</p>
<p>I don’t actually know anyone who bought a car outright, but I do know people who bought newer cars around high school graduation. I would have never been able to actually get to my job if I had one before I got a car - neither of my parents have the luxury of sitting around at home all day waiting for me to need to go somewhere - so there’s no way I would have been able to buy one. I decided to start working in the summer after I got my license because I didn’t want it to interfere with schoolwork too much when I was new at it, but it took me 9 months to find a job that paid a bit over minimum wage. I was supposed to use money from the job to pay for ‘fun’ things both while I was at home and in college the next year, gas, and insurance. I never actually made enough money to pay the entire insurance amount (and I just barely made over it the next summer), so they ended up paying for that anyway. I did have enough to cover all my expenses at school the next year, with a little left over, and from my summer job following freshman year I was able to pay for expenses and rent all the way into January.</p>
<p>The stupid thing, IMO, is that since my parents have decided that it’s “my car” even though I don’t actually own it, they have also decided that they don’t want “my car” sitting around in their driveway all year, so they forced me to take it with me. I go to school in the city. I walk everywhere. There is minimal parking and there are crazy bums who will break into your car if they think you might have a quarter hidden in there somewhere (I’ve been hit 3 times so far). I don’t want to keep the car here. It’s a huge hassle and it makes me nervous because I have to keep checking up on it. If it were really mine, I would have probably sold it 3 years ago. The only place I drive it is home, the only reason I go home is because my parents bug me to, yet when I didn’t have car here they would always cringe and whine about having to come and get me. I’m starting to hate that car. Maybe I would have been better off if they would have refused “give” one to me in the first place.</p>