How long did it take you to learn to drive and get your license from the time you actively started learning?
In 1984, I got a learner’s permit after taking a written test. I don’t remember how long I studied for that. Five weeks later I took the driving test on a closed, almost private road course and got my license. The laws have changed since then and the learner’s permit is kept for six months, I believe.
From the time I actively started learning , sixteen years.
About 12 weeks. With about 20 hours lessons. I always was a smartarse 
I guess I’ll find out. I had my first ‘official’ lesson today
I grew up in sunny southern California, where I was in a car all the time from birth onward–no kidding, I barely remember being in the house at all–and I could drive as soon as I got behind the wheel. I did get better, but never had a wreck and didn’t get honked at too much. Took me two hours to learn parallel parking. That was about 20 tries, I hit it on the third one, but wasn’t consistent until later attempts. It was supposed to be on the driver’s test, but then, they didn’t test for that!
My best friend grew up in mid-Manhattan and learned to drive when she was 22. She still doesn’t drive too well. (20 years later.) Flunked her drive test 3 times before she passed . . . But she, too, is getting better all the time. (This is a person who once waited for eons to make a left, passing up many opportunities I would have taken had I been driving, and then finally shut her eyes, essentially, said, “Those drivers have brakes,” and just went. Aieeee!)
[slight addendum: I had two defensive driving courses as part of my employment, after I had been driving for years, and they really, really helped. But they were quick. One day, three days.]
By actively started learning, I mean got behind the wheel for the first time with the intent to do some sort of driving thing.
I’m asking this because I don’t have my license yet, and now I really, really need to get it. Before this, it wasn’t an absolute necessity.
Depends on what you mean. I “actively started learning” at 12, when my dad first started letting me drive around in empty parking lots. I took a driver’s ed course (required in VA to get a license if you’re under a certain age) that lasted two weeks, at the end of which I got my license, four years after the first time I ever drove. I’d say I had the whole “driving” thing pretty much nailed within six months of that occurrence, but I’m not positive whether those figures mean anything, since I didn’t drive too much at all before age 15 1/2. Interpret that as you will.
(slight aside: Harimad-Sol, I’m working on that explanation you requested. Really. Seriouly. I promise. I’ve just been really busy lately. It won’t take too much longer. 
)
Think it was 3 months, but you could’ve compressed that down to two weeks if you wanted to. A bunch of theory and rules of the road classroom discussion. Maybe 6 days of driving around a parking lot with cones and in a simulator, then 3 road practices, a test, and voila! Driver’s license.
If you have to deal with a manual transmission, then you can add another week onto that. It needn’t take that long, but some people have a longer learning curve with stick shifts, so I’m accounting for that. It’s not really all that difficult.
You’ll do fine.
OK. I expect it when you finish it. How’s that? I await your words.
I don’t think that it would take a determined person too long to learn how to drive. I’m just interested in knowing if an estimate of weeks is realistic.
I grew up in the country so I started out slowly too. My father taught me to drive on roads on our own property when I was about 12 but you couldn’t go too fast. He let me drive on the road with him at 13. At 14, I took driver’s ed and then my parents let me drive to close destinations by myself. I got my license on my 15th birthday. I don’t know the total time for me.
Even then, there was still a ton of stuff to learn and get better at. It depends on what you mean by function. Someone can learn to drive up and down a sidestreets very quickly. Driving in downtown Boston during rush our, OTOH, is big league stuff and I wouldn’t want to see anyone without several years of experience try it. You have to know the conditions you will need to be driving in at first.
It was about a year from the time I got my learner’s permit to the time I passed my driver’s test. I didn’t have a pressing need for a licence so I wasn’t in any hurry.
I suppose a timeframe of weeks is possible if you are really dedicated to it. That doesn’t mean however, that you take a 1 hour lesson today and might try to fit another one in a couple of days from now. You would have to devote many hours a week to driving practice as well as studying for the written test. Many other people have done it well enough to pass the driving test and get their license. Keep in mind however, that posessing a license doesn’t mean that there aren’t some perfectly legal driving situations out there that stomp you and make you pour sweat if you try to drive in them with new license in hand.
Given the proper definition in the thread, 10 years. I drove twice and not again for 8 years. Then I picked it back up again and in 5 hours had my license.
I loved cars as a kid so I was able to drive a clutch from day one. When I was 15 I remember practicing (with the gears) in a parked car and accidentally rolled it down a hill. The owner thought it would be entertaining to watch me try to repark it. I pulled it up first shot.
If I remember correctly I took at class in school (High Schools use to teach driving) so technically a high school semester was the time frame. Had to parallel park a 72 Oldsmobile 88.
Although the license was easy, learning to drive like a sane person took some time. I thought basic driving skills qualified me for NASCAR racing. Glad I lived through it and even happier nobody suffered for it. Lost some friends to stupid traffic accidents.
If this question is the result of frustration with the learning process don’t sweat it. Not only will it come, you’ll be better for the additional time it takes. Took me forever to get my pilots license. The check pilot told me the only reason I got my license was because I didn’t kill him (honestly). He told me something that applies to almost every license. Getting certified means you are qualified to continue learning on your own. I take driving seriously and will sometimes take my car to a deserted parking lot on a rainy day to practice emergency maneuvers.
From my first lesson to getting my license was a little over a year, I think (I remember having to renew my learner’s permit), but there was a lot of dead time in the middle. I think I went out actively practicing maybe a half-dozen times or so. Passed on the first try, though, and haven’t had an accident so far.
My instructor was a bit nuts, though. My second time out, he had me get on I-93 and drive into downtown Boston at rush hour. Trial by fire, I guess.
I had my first ‘lesson’ the day I got my learners, IIRC, so about 3 1/2 months. 3 months is the absolute minimum between getting your learners and going for your test here (except under special circumstances).
I got my learner’s permit the week of my 16th birthday and my license about two months later.
Right now I’m teaching my daughter how to drive. She got her learner’s permit in March and I’ve been teaching her ever since. She will be eligible to test for her license when she turns 16 at the end of November. I think she may have been capable of passing the test after two months of practice, but I’m really glad that the laws don’t allow that. She’s technically capable, but the extra time on the road in all different situations will make her a *much * safer driver.
I went to high school in Wilmington, DE, and my first time behind the wheel of a car was to go from the driveway of the school carpark onto I-95 in the morning rush as per the instructor’s directive.
I would like to add, this instructor was mad as a balloon. I had a total of about an hour (2 lessons) in the car with him. He had me go to a tiny, cramped carpark, in the pouring rain, to learn to reverse park on the second lesson. He insisted I change lanes in intersections. He slammed on his set of brakes wherever and whenever the mood took him.
The second lesson, after the carpark episode, I went immediately to I-95 – because I realised there was no way I would go out for a lesson with this madman again, and simply decided to drive the 20 miles down the interstate to my house. I think he thought he was being kidnapped. My mum was livid when she found out what had transpired.
By the way – he wrote out my learner’s permit after I arrived at my house. I was 15 years old.
If you’re learning in an automatic, it should only take a month tops. Driving an auto is very easy.
I had lessons over six weeks (in a manual) but failed by first test, a few days before I went to university in September. I couldn’t get another test scheduled before I left, so I booked one for a couple of days after I got back, at Christmas. I only had time for one more lesson and passed that one, mostly as I didn’t have time to get worried I think!