In California, at least, if you want to get your license before 18 the law requires you to take a driver’s ed class in high school and get a certain number of hours in brhind the wheel training from a licensed driving school.
Is this not the case elsewhere?
Not everywhere. Washington State, for example, had been discussing making it a requirement this year.
I don’t know if anything came of that. Meanwhile, there are insurance companies which give a minor discount for young drivers who take the class.
From the desk of … More Than You Ever Wanted To Know On The Subject:
I’m not sure if I’m following these posts, but in WA State, if you want a drivers license before the age of 18, you must take an accredited driving course and get a certain number of hours behind the wheel with a licensed driver (40 hours day driving, 10 hours night driving). After 18, no class required. Yet.
I’ll take the word of an area resident over an ambiguous article.
Yeah, they neglected to mention the part about 16- & 17-year-olds.
We have graduated licensing here in Ontario. You can get your permit with a knowledge test at 16. Your first real license where you can drive alone comes after a test at 8 months with approved driver’s ed or a year without. Then you have to wait at least a year and a max total of 5 years to take your last test and get a full license.
Incidentally, we don’t need a sticker or decal on the car for student drivers.
Virginia is similar, I believe, as is Vermont. My daughter just finally got her permit, up in Vermont (she had one here in VA, but it lapsed some years back). No driver’s ed requirement - though we have told her to arrange for driving lessons up there.
My son took driver’s ed through the school district. There was a classroom portion that everyone got in 10th grade, then behind-the-wheel training which we paid extra for. The instructor of that could, at their discretion, pass the kid, thus s/he could get their license. My son didn’t do well enough - so he finally took the test separately a month or two after his 18th birthday.
I’m told that the under-18s have to go in front of a judge to actually GET the license. Not sure what the point of that is, aside from making it a pain in the neck and giving the judge a chance to lecture them.
When I was growing up, back in the dark ages in Pennsyvania, we had junior licenses until 18 (also called Cinderella licenses, as we could not drive solo after midnight). We could get a provisional senior license at 17 if we had a clean record and had taken driver’s ed.
I didn’t get around to taking the test until just before my 17th birthday. And the licenses expired at the end of the month of our birthday. So when I first turned 18, I very briefly had 3 valid driver’s licenses (the junior, the provisional senior, and the real senior license).
Help me out, because I gave it a minute and…I got nothin’
…
Around here the stickers say “Please be patient. Student driver.” It’s to excuse bad driving.
I see a lot of these labels on cars, but then, they’re mostly in the parking lot of the high school I teach at. I don’t know if they’re adhesive or magnets.
And Ohio doesn’t have any particular requirement for lessons, though many parents opt for them anyway, and I don’t think any of the high schools offer lessons (it’s all companies that do nothing but driving lessons). But teen drivers do have a bunch of extra rules: They’re allowed to drive to and from school, and to pick up and drop off immediate family members, but not much more than that unless they have an adult in the car with them.
Stud ENT
Car insurance for teens is astronomically high - far higher than it was 10-15 years ago. Most insurance companies offer pretty solid discounts for drivers that take drivers’ ed classes. I would wager that there’s been a correlative increase in enrollment.
That’s true, even back when I was a teen, the insurance for a teen male driver was prohibitively high (at least, for my family’s means). Anything that would lower the premiums was, if not mandatory, the next best thing to it.
In the UK actual student drivers during lessons (well their instructors) are required to have top-of-car signage and I reckon sides of the car too.
Inside are drivers who may not yet understand the subtilises of roundabouts or right-of-way and others should give them lots of way. I have a full drivers licence and if my wife is driving on a provisional (she passed the written test), the car need to have so-called red “L” plates front and back which essentially indicate to other drivers the same kind of thing,
There is yet another plate, a “P” which living close to Wales I once thought meant the same (“in Welsh”) as the red L plated. Yet it’s true reason is “I’m a really new fulll driver so cut me a break” which is kind of nice.
After driving on the wrong side of the road in the USA for 30 years, and even taking lessons in Ireland (I believe they mandate 13 or 15 or so) I passed my driving test in the UK on the fourth try.
How can you tell who a student driver is? Student drivers come in all ages. Not all student drivers are 15.
The town I worked in until recently had several areas that were used by driving schools. Dead ends in industrial areas perfect for setting up cones to practice parking. We also have a huge Asian/Indian immigrant population. Most of those driving schools catered to that demographic. Most of their clients were adults.
From what I’ve seen, going by stickers most student drivers are in their 30s. Aaaaaaand if they were student drivers, someone else (licensed driver over 18) needs o be in the car with them. These guys are driving solo.
Clearly “student driver” signage is code for swinging.
Only when combined with a pineapple air freshener.
My brother would drive my parents Chevy Vega when they weren’t around when he was 15 (in NY 15 is/was(?) a not even a junior license (16 years old) and you’d still need someone with a full licence to be in the car. A fishing cap and sunglasses were enough for he and his friends to head out on the highway looking for adventure.
One time I can definitely date him driving (and not by months for the first time) is the John Lennon vigil on December 14, 1980. My brother would have been just over 16. I gathered up my friends an originally we were going to Central Park but instead went to the closer Eisenhower park vigil. I reckon because the parents weren’t that far away and we had time when we returned to decorate the tree.
In High School I had an afternoon job and three times a week drivers ed. I was 17 so legal to drive to school and work. We’d do the drivers-ed and my Monte Carlo would usually be the only one in the student lot and so off to work I went. When me and a friend passed drivers ed and were 18 I drove rather quasi-not-legally to the DMV so we could get our full licenses.