Well I remember when I was 17 someone got me a book about the Highway Code and a theory test for drivers with the idea that I should learn to drive when I was 17 and in more recent years my father said it would be good if I passed my driving test because if my mother was too old or unwell I could drive the car and go places and it seems there is alot of pressure to do this. What age can you learn to drive a car in countries such as the USA and do alot of people do it at that age? Also if people get to the age of 35 and they don’t drive people might think there is something wrong with them but there can be advantages to not driving such as the costs of keeping a car on the road, and if you can use public transport then it may be best so in relation to pressure on people to do it, do you think people should learn to drive and things like this?
I think there used to be a lot more pressure to get a license in the US than now. Either that or kids are a lot better at resisting it because the number of teens with licenses is way down.
My parents made me get a license as soon as I could - age 16 and a few months - so I could drive my brother around so they didn’t have to. They were mildly annoyed that I couldn’t take driver’s ed until a few months after my birthday because the class filled up and they gave the oldest kids to sign up the slots.
In this part of the US there is very little public transportation outside of the areas immediately surrounding colleges, so it’s pretty rare that a person who is old enough to have a full-time job doesn’t know how to drive.
This is definitely the case. As this 2016 article in The Atlantic notes:
- In 2014, only 24.5% of 16-year-old Americans had drivers’ licenses; this is down from 46.2% in 1983.
- In that same year, only 69% of 19-year-olds had licenses, compared to 87.3% in 1983.
(While the specifics vary by state, in the U.S., generally, one can get at least a probationary driver’s license at age 16.)
When I was 16 (in 1981), most everyone I knew was extremely eager to get their licenses as soon as possible. Not only did parents want us to be able to drive, in order to get to after-school jobs and to schlep younger siblings around, but in the pre-internet era, if you wanted to socialize with your friends, you needed to be able to get around.
Operating a car is like operating a stove or an ATM or a pair of scissors. It’s not overly difficult to learn, and will almost certainly come in handy.
High school age is ideal, because a family car and competent driver are present for training and practice – they may not be later on.
Operating a car is easy. Driving a car on public roads is much harder. Driving isn’t about turning the wheel and pressing the brakes, it’s about interacting with other drivers, with pedestrians, and with the law. It’s apparently very difficult to learn, seeing as hardly anyone knows how to do it.
There are absolutely no downsides to learning to drive. There can be downsides to owning a car, but there can also be downsides to relying solely on public transportation.
I think there is some stigma for people who make it to full adulthood (let’s say, 20) without knowing how to drive, especially if those people are still relying on friends and family for most of their rides. Rightly or wrongly, it is a skill that signals maturity and independence in most of the US. I think this is slowly changing in urban areas with the rise of Uber/Lyft and increasing awareness of how sucky car culture is. But I don’t blame parents for putting pressure on their neurologically typical adult children to get a license. There are lots of places in the US that are not serviced by public transit or Uber/Lyft and many jobs that require one to have their own set of wheels. By not learning, a person puts themselves out of the running for some opportunities. No good parent wants that for their kids.
Around where I live it is sufficiently rural enough that there is little to no public transportation. Uber coverage is spotty at best. You either drive or move.
Depends on where you are. Here, driver’s ed is so freakishly expensive that my parents couldn’t provide it to me. I was 30 before I had that kind of extra money (roughly 2 000 usd), and took the test. Deffo a downside, putting roughly four months worth of rent money into something not absolutely necessary, thanks to widespread public transportation.
Youth licenses are certainly down, but I don’t know if that’s due to resuced pressure. I don’t know that it’s not, either.
A hypothesis: it’s more expensive now (pricier insurance, reluctance to let your kid drive an unsafe but cheap beater, less teen employment.)
I’m not sure any of that’s true though
If the country has become more urbanized, then more people have access to public transportation, Uber, bikes (and stuff within biking distance), electric scooters, etc. than before.
Also the utility of staying at home is higher than it used to be, due to the internet.
I forgot to account for that cost. My parents taught me, so it was free for me to learn. And I suppose we should also account for the cost of time and having a vehicle to practice on.
But if a teenager has parents/family who are willing to teach them and they are don’t have any extenuating circumstances (severe anxiety disorder or physical/cognitive disorders), then I do think they are shooting themselves in the foot by not learning.
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Even more so, it’s about understanding the mechanical and kinetic dynamics of the machine. That, like the points you mentioned, is mostly common sense along with civil decency. Most people master driving well enough that they drives all their life without doing irreparable harm, and I move about among them without irrational fear.
Until the era of stripping public schools of support, Driver’s Ed was a perfectly free elective offered to high schoolers 15 and older, including a classroom component of which all I remember is a video reflex test. As I remember they also taught you how to pump gas (not that I needed that skill until gas station attendants disappeared). Everyone I knew in high school drove just as soon as they could legally do so. There was no other reasonable way to avoid being trapped in your house. It was absolutely expected, a normal rite of passage virtually everyone went through.
I hated driving, did the unreasonable thing and rode my bike everywhere and took buses, which were sparse and very slow. I traveled all over the country without a car until I was I think 21. My daughter also did not drive until a similar age, but it wasn’t so anomalous by then.
Interestingly my aunt, who was in a bad accident while driving, just out of college, refused to drive again and lived her entire life without a car. She just coped. I do not remember her relying heavily on other people giving her rides, she mostly took buses.
If you live in a dense city, there are a few of them in the US, a car is a liability and a lot of people don’t drive. When I lived in San Francisco I kept my car in the outskirts and when I wanted to drive somewhere I took a bus to my car.
I can’t help but think this is a factor in the decline in teenagers driving in the US. For my generation, driving meant freedom and some measure of adulthood, both desirable. Those who made it into adulthood who didn’t drive were stigmatized similar to the 30 year-old living in their parent’s basement. All this is from the perspective of a rural environment. I can imagine that living in an urban environment with public transportation has very different attitudes about driving.
I will say that I never perceived any pressure from parents on the subject. It was just “normal” to learn driving at school, like learning history or science.
I agree. I didn’t learn how to drive until I was twenty-one (the usuual age in these parts is fifteen) and it was definitely a handicap. I always depended on others to drive me around, which more than a few times caused me to be stranded in iffy situations. Not to mention, it gave everyone a pain in the ass.
All jokuing aside, ha ha ha bad drivers, in fact almost everyone knows how to do it.
Driving is a fundamental life skill; absent some compelling reason not to, everyone should learn to do it. It’s also my anecdotal experience that the worst drivers I know are the ones who waited until later in adulthood to learn.
IDK if there is a lot of pressure or a lot of desire to learn to drive. I never felt pressured, but wanted to be able to drive. I’ve always wanted mobility, at the age of 8 I was riding my bike miles from home, at age 11 extending that by taking my bike on the train and at 12 or so I had a motor boat, and had places I could go by water and used that boat as a car to get to where I wanted.
I agree that it’s an important skill; I was just disagreeing that it was an easy one to learn.
You know, when you use the word “here” in a post to indicate how things are done in a particular geopolitical location, it’s really helpful to actually specify that location.
Used to be, but now more people believe the drivers’ seat is the only place you surrender your freedom. It’s the only placed the police can demand to see papers of identity without probabe cause and conduct a search without warrant. Young Americans are becoming increasingly cognizant of this, and resisting the temptation to drive.
I agree that it’s an important skill; I was just disagreeing that it was an easy one to learn.