I was 33 when I got it, 35 when I actually used it. I lived in Queens after college; before that I couldn’t afford a car and my mom was too nervous a teacher. Now, at 41, I just recently took my first solo road trip from Rhode Island to Maine. It was to pick my five year old up from my parents’. On the way up, it was a dream; on the way back, it was rainy and, thanks to Kindergarten Caricci’s sudden bathroom emergency I ended up going through Boston. Two bridges and a tunnel later, I’m still here and would do it again.
When I first met my husband, he really advocated for me to get a license. However, the teacher I hired was too tentative. When I moved to Rhode Island, I got this great teacher who had me on the highway the first lesson. Also, in RI they are allowed to let you practice on the test course. Still, it took me two years to dare to drive by myself.
Well I guess I was pretty young still, but I ws 18 when I got it. The only reason parents let me get it was because I had to commute to school.
This is how their decision went:
Make her commute to school (then she has to get a license, and she will be independent)
Send her to where she really wants to go to college, (got a scholarship!) and we don’t have to get her a license (but then she’ll be really independent.)
So they sent me to the community college and let me take the test.
I was 17 and a little more when I got mine, about seven or eight months later than I could have. I couldn’t take drivers ed because of drama and Academic Decatholon and then dropping out of school and college at night sort of took over as important things. However, as my parents are nuts (you can’t drive until you are as good as your brother (btw I am a better driver, as i have no tickets and he has several). So I got my licence in October, my car in December, which I paid for, and yet wasn’t allowed to drive until May. So for my first year in college I had to wait outside like a 10 year old for my father to get around to picking me up, which could be literaly hours after he said he would. But no, I’m not bitter.
I dated a guy who was 21 (at the time we broke up - we’d been dating for several years before that) and who had no desire to get a license. It wasn’t even that there was good public transport around (we lived in a fairly rural area then) - there was actually no public transport.
I never did understand why he didn’t get one for the convenience factor alone, but he got around well enough without one.
I was close to eighteen when I got my license, and I got my first car about half a year after. Practically everyone I knew got their license at sixteen.
I got mine at 19. However this was worse because I graduated high school at 16, so it was my junior year of college (an hour away from home) before I could drive. But that’s nothing compared to my mother, who didn’t even get her permit until she was fifty. Yup. The public transportation was good where she lived before she met my dad, and then when she married him he drove her around when she needed to get places. When she had kids she stayed home with us, so anywhere she needed to go, dad could take her. She finally got her license around my junior year of high school when she went back to work. I think she wins so far.
You people have given me hope. I’m 18, and I don’t even have a permit. I’m terrified of driving, and I’ve only driven a car twice (the second time I hit a telephone pole).
I ride the bus to school, and my friends or parents will usually give me a ride somewhere. The public transportation in KC isn’t very good, but there’s a grocery store and some other shops within walking distance. I don’t have a job, but if I did, it would definately be one within walking distance.
I was 24, because in high school, I didn’t have the money to take the driving lessons, so I was going to wait a year until I could earn the money. Then the teacher died and when I went back to try to take the road part of driving, they wanted to make me take the class again. Since that would have lowered my GPA, I didn’t want to take the class again.
In retrospect, driving instruction would have been much, much more valuable than the extra .01 or whatever I got on my grade point average.
I first tried driver’s ed when I was in high school, but that was basically “cram three clueless teens and an instructor into a four-seat sedan and give everyone a chance to panic behind the wheel”. I’m just glad that I wasn’t the one who, first time behind the wheel, turned onto the freeway at dusk and forgot to make sure the headlights were on… :eek:
After that traumatic experience, I graduated from highschool, went off to university, then came back home and got a job. I was used to going everywhere by bus, and this just continued. About a year later, I decided to break down and get my license, and then I did travel quite a bit in the borrowed parental car (visiting my sister in Ottawa, for instance).
I never did take the car over or buy one of my own. I live in Toronto and public transit gets me where I need to go. Only recently with the moving of my father up north have I felt a strong desire for a car, and I’m 41.
I didn’t get my license until I was 20 and had a baby. Kind of “YAY! Time to grow up!” or something. Before that, I just… didn’t. No reason, really. :shrugs: Lazy, maybe. I left school before I was old enough to attend driver’s ed and then I just didn’t care about it. I got my first car when I was 18 (still have it) and drove it anyway. I was ticketed once when I had to tell the police, after being T-boned in a gas station parking lot, that I wasn’t licensed (and therefore, uninsured (although the car itself was insured with a parent listed as the driver) so I had to either pay cash to fix the giant dent, or not get it fixed at all). The fine was $130, the estimate for the car was over two grand. So there was a cost for me.
I feel a lot better about things now that I have my license, and the tests are really quite easy. For the written, you do have to remember a few facts, but a lot of it (IME, I understand the tests will vary in other places) is just common sense. The actual driving test can be a bit stressful though, with that guy taking notes and whatnot. But still, pretty simple. Just drive like you’re supposed to, that’s all.
I got my first license last year, at the age of 45. Do I win? The only reason I got it was so I could apply for a civil service job that required a license. I live in Chicago. We have a great mass transit system and taxis up the wazoo.
I’m 28, and I’ve been driving for less than a year. Just never really wanted to learn. It was apathy, more than anything else. I regret not getting it sooner, though; it’s a lot more fun than I expected.
I got my driver’s license when I was 23, about two months after my sister - who’s five and a half years younger than me.
I took driver’s ed back in high school, a little late, but nothing weird (I had a full schedule when I was a sophomore, so I had to wait til I was a junior, and already 16), got a permit, was all set to learn to drive, and then came…the part where you actually have to learn to drive.
Basically, my dad was a terrible teacher. That’s pretty much the long and short of it. I was sixteen and my dad is not the world’s most patient person, and driving lessons would inevitably end up with both of us yelling and me crying. I didn’t really want to drive and didn’t need to - I grew up in a small city where everything I needed was within walking distance. Then I went to college in a small city where parking was extremely limited on campus anyway, so most everyone took the bus.
When I graduated from college, my dad pretty much made me learn to drive. So, I did. But then I totalled my car about a year later and haven’t had one since. I’m a dedicated pedestrian, I guess. But I won’t say that a driver’s license isn’t a handy thing to have.
I got an “A” in driver’s Ed in HS. I wanted to practice, so my grandfather took me out in his Studebaker. Some how I ended up crosswise in our driveway. I ruined a large tract of lawn. After that, There was no more driving for me!
When I was 27 my husband bought me a (new) Chevy Nova, and said “Drive it or let it rust in the driveway.”
The steering was so tight, I almost had to stand up to steer. But somehow, I passed my driving test. The rest is history.
(I just got a Corvette :D)
My mom wins—she was about 64 when she got her license.
She never got her license when my dad was alive. She tried, many times, but always chickened out. And sometimes she kind of sucked. But my dad said that she could have gotten her license if she’d not been so afraid.
Well, after he died, she moved out of state and there was no one to drive her around and the bus service sucked even worse than it did in L.A. So she eventually learned. She’s not the best driver, but she usually gets to church and to the store okay.
I got my license at age 27. I started to drive with a learner’s permit at age 25. This is quite a feat in Los Angeles, which is a very car-centered place. I took the bus everywhere but it was a huge hassle. The reasons for not learning were partly my own cowardace, and partly the ineffectual efforts of family members and friends, who nagged me to learn but did nothing to help (and I had a traumatic lesson which consisted of being told to drive, and then when I didn’t do it perfectly, being treated as if I was a menace and never being offered lessons again). I finally took professional driving lessons and did just fine.
I’ve certainly made up for being a “late bloomer” in driving—I love to drive long distances and cross country, and while I’m not a great driver I don’t suck too badly.
One thing I do recall about those years not driving—I built it in my mind as a big deal, and my friends (some of them) played along and acted as if it was a major failing. I think a few friends actually enjoyed “lording it over me” a little bit. I sometimes thought that those who drove—anyone who drove—was somehow “superior” to me. Boy, did that change when I finally started to drive. I realized how many morons were on the road, and I also realized that it wasn’t rocket science. I daresay that I’m probably a better driver than some who “lorded it over me” back in the day.
41 and I’m currently applying for my learners permit. I never wanted to drive and I still don’t want to. Up until I had kids I caught public transport or used taxis. When I lived in NZ I rode my bike everywhere. When we moved to the country, we were beyond broke and couldn’t afford lessons. I knew Mr P and I would kill each other if he tried to teach me.
Since being in Australia, it’s grown to be a bigger and bigger PITA not driving. Disability Q has funded lessons for me, eeeep, in June… I need to get off my arse and just go and do it. Life will be easier if I can do the school run.
I’m heading towards 45 and do not have a driving licence.
Born and brought up in a rough part of London, so (1) there was no need for a car because we just walked or used public transport (2) dad worked for British Rail so longer journeys were by train and either free or at “privilege” rate, i.e. a quarter of the standard fare (3) if you did have a car, there was nowhere to put it and, in any event, (4) it would have been nicked or vandalised within seconds.
As an aside: in the UK licence is the noun but license is the verb.
Same thing here. Of course, thinking about all the morons who drive made me feel worse back then- these people were so stupid, and yet could do something that I could not, which made them somehow superior.
When I went to take my driving test , my appt was at 7:30. I was home by 8. The test lasted for 10 MINUTES! Start the car, pull into the fenced area, drive to the left, sudden stop, back up 10 feet, drive to the right , 3 point turn, go out to the parking lot and park in a space. That’s it. Didn’t even go out onto the road. No wonder Florida has so many insane drivers- we all learned to drive AFTER we got our licenses!
