People who got their driver's license later down the line

In My Humble Opinion
41

You should know that there are driving schools that specialize in training adults who are afraid of driving, or of driving in specific circumstances. This one is in San Francisco, but they might be able to refer you to someone in your area that does the same thing.

You might also want to ask your doctor if you might have an anxiety disorder, or get a referral to a psychiatrist. I have an anxiety disorder, and I firmly believe it was the main thing that kept me from getting my driver’s license until I was 23. I managed to get my license before my anxiety disorder was treated, but I would have had a much, much easier time of it if it had been treated.

42

28 years old. Went to HS during the fiscal crisis, and we were lucky if we had heat, let alone these “driver’s ed classes” of which you people who went to rich kid schools speak. :wink:

Now, to be fair, my brothers both got theirs around 16 and 17 and drove junkers around (parents have never bought any of us a car, last name not Rockefeller!) but they were much more Yonkers-oriented. My friends and I (none of the guys I ever dated had cars) liked Manhattan; we took the subway and ended up in places where you could have spent a) two hours or b) two week’s after-school-minimum-wage-jobs salary to park the things. So, screw it.

I then went to college in the exact city that you need a car even LESS-Boston. It wasn’t until I graduated and was living in Cambridge for a few years that I decided I should have one for road trips. My first lesson was to pull out onto traffic on Broadway and–this’ll be a hoot for people who know Cantabrigian geography–drive nearly to Harvard Square, right on Oxford, to Mass Ave, through Porter Square, up to Alewife, over to Mem Drive, back down past Harvard Square, then up River to Prospect to home. Those prosaic words cannot convey the dodging of cars, busses, trolley-busses, bikes, and 17th-century-era streets laid out by cows and shephards that I had to navigate while still trying to remember what the bigger pedal did.

Got the license and then didn’t drive for five more years, it being just a harrowing ordeal, until finally I moved back to NYC, and a couple of years ago went on a solo road trip to Williamstown, MA because there was a play I wanted to see up there, dammit. Trip up was fine, play was incredible, and then I had to drive back along the Thruway during a storm that resembled a car wash. Made it and haven’t been scared since, although I still haven’t driven midtown Manhattan traffic (I have skittered across Manhattan from the Bronx to the GW Bridge, and once picked up a friend’s car for her from Lincoln Center area and ran right over the Henry Hudson and over to Jersey. That’s it. They be crazy down there.)

And oh yeah, does my late Grandma get the prize? She was 68 years old when her husband’s Parkinson’s got too bad for him to drive; she just up and learned and drove as fast as she could whenever she liked. :smiley:

43

Addendum: I still never have owned a car, but have one I can occasionally borrow. The insurance alone, sheesh.

44

Don’t be so worried about starting when you’re 19 or later. When my youngest brother came along at age 16 and started making noises about getting his learner’s permit, my parents refused to give permission because they considered him too immature. This became highly amusing when my sister, 18 months younger, got her learner’s permit the day she turned 16. Bro eventually got his license when he was 20-- took him that long to save for driver’s lessons.

45

I learned how to drive at 15, but I didn’t get my licence until I was 18 and 1/2. I attended the majority of high school in NY, where we just didn’t need a licence and it wasn’t any kind of rite of passage in my group of friends. When I moved to rural PA at 17, I didn’t have any friends to go out with and therefore no desire to spend my money on a car. I finally got my licence the month before I began commuting to college every day.

46

I feel like I am not going to get my driver’s license but I know it’ll happen one day. And God has his plans for me to drive, own a car and save up money to get a car one day. it just sucks not knowing how to drive or owning a car right now. And if I do learn to drive, it may be later down the line, when I am 25 or 29. I hope it’s this year or next year, in God’s will and blessing that I learn to drive. And it takes a lot of work and faith as well. :slight_smile:

47

God wants you to take driving lessons. And to not count on Him to keep you out of accidents. And wear your seatbelt.

48

I was a little afraid of driving too. So I didn’t get my permit until I was 16 1/2, and my license until shortly before I started my senior year of high school. I was eligible for my permit three months before my 16th birthday. I’m not sure if Indiana is still like this, but the idea was that you had three months to drive with a permit, and then could take your test the day you turned 16.

My aunt knew I was a afraid of driving, and I never did ask to be driven places-- I always rode my bike-- but just before school started, she mentioned that it would be “helpful” if I could drive my younger cousins places, or run other errands. So I took the test-- and failed. Took it again two weeks later, with my hands shaking, and ready to puke the whole time, but that time I somehow passed.

That evening, I drove the car around the neighborhood solo for the first time. I don’t think I got it over 20mph, but it gave me confidence.

I was a very timid driver for a long time, and when I moved back to NYC, I almost never drove there. I had a New York license once, but I never took a test there, never owned a car there. I did once rent one to drive to Indiana, and drove it out of the city. It was nerve-wracking.

Most of the time I have had a license, it’s been an Indiana license.

It wasn’t until my 30s that I really learned to drive well. I had to become slightly aggressive-- assertive maybe is a better word. But I still always let the other person drive when I go some place with someone.

49

I got mine at 14, at the time i lived in Montana, license did not even have a picture on it

I could not afford a car, or insurance, but you had to have a license to operate any farm vehicles on the highway, and the sugar beet farms were always hiring people during harvest, so if you were going to get a seasonal job running beet trucks etc, you needed a license.

Now my paternal Grandmother, in her 70’s she still did not have a license.
She would walk to the grocery and drugstore etc (no she did not live in Montana)
If she had to go someplace that actually required driving, my Grandfather drove.

She had driven before, long long ago, was learning, but she almost slid a car off the edge of a narrow mountain road, and it scared her enough that she never drove a car again and never got a license.

I wish i never drove and did not have to because i do not find driving fun at all, but there is no way i can walk 60 miles to work.
Well not if i want to be here on time anyways.

50

I never bothered to learn to drive when I was 16 because in those days, our dad’s hardly ever gave the car anyway so the kids I hung with didn’t drive much either. (We could buy beer with draft card.) When I was 18 in college, all I had was my instruction permit which had lapsed. I was in Louisiana, and had a ride home for Christmas with a guy who wanted me to help drive, so he took me to the DMV for my license, they examiner glanced at my other-state learner permit, and issued me a regular drivers license, no test written or driving, just a DL. That was 61 years ago, and I’ve still never taken behind-the-wheel test in my life. I was 19 before I ever drove by self, I was just out on the highway faking it, nobody ever taught me anything.

51

In this thread I’m expecting to see zombies behind the wheel!

52

My father tried to teach me to drive when I was 16, but because of his temper (“God damn it, can’t you see that stop sign, 200 feet ahead?!?” as he stomped down on his imaginary brake), I never learned. Then, after college, I lived in NYC, where it’s insane to drive. Finally, after I turned 30, I moved across the GW Bridge, and really needed to drive. So I took driving lessons… in Midtown Manhattan!!! Holy shit! Driving quickly became one of the greatest joys of my life. I still love it.

53

Mine’s not as extreme as some but I was in no hurry to drive as a teen and I knew the earliest I would ever be able to get a car was after college so I was in no rush and didn’t get a license until I was almost 18 and it was mainly so I could get an ID.

54

I, and the family I come from, are in the UK also. Am in my late sixties – have never taken a driving test or held a full-fledged driving licence – short version: I reckon myself very untalented as regards driving; even if by some miracle I ended up passing the test, I consider that the world is a safer place without my trying to conduct motor vehicles around any of it. (I think it’s accurate to say that life as a non-driver is easier in the UK, than in the States – though here, if you live in the depths of the countryside, basically you have to have your own transport.)

A late uncle of mine didn’t learn to drive, until his mid-forties. Till then, he and his wife used public transport until they acquired a moped / motor scooter kind-of-thing. What pushed them into mastering car-driving was their becoming, in their mid-forties, besotted thenceforth-lifelong dog-owners – biggish dogs (basset hounds), without a car for transporting which, they had problems.

My uncle was – a good deal like me – very much not a natural driver; and approached the whole thing with some trepidation. It took him two or three tries to pass his test – he finally “cracked” the thing by buying a car, and arranging with a work colleague who lived near where he did, that they would as a routine matter go to and from work in my uncle’s car, with my uncle driving (colleague’s presence satisfied the requirement for a licence-holder to be there with him in the vehicle). Doing this every Monday to Friday, month after month, eventually gave my uncle enough practice to get the hang of the business. His wife learnt to drive a little later than him, but with less difficulty.

55

I was a late driver – got my license at 21. I did get a license and drive at 15 1/2 because I needed to drive for work but the whole thing was so nerve wracking I just abandoned driving for a long time.

My daughter has outdone me though; she is 27 this year, just got her license. She got through grad school without one and still doesn’t need a car to get to work. I think there are a lot more young people who don’t see a driver’s license as a rite of passage to adulthood than there used to be.

56

Although I got my license at 17 and drove extensively the first several years (hell, I even worked as a taxi driver for a while), I think I’ve spent a grand total of 5 hours behind the wheel in the past 20 years (I’m 45). Combination of living in a city with an insanely complete public transit network (and extremely inconvenient and expensive parking), and becoming an avid cyclist. I’ve never driven without a valid licence or international permit, but I’ve let my US license lapse several times.

This year, however, I’m going to have to get a Japanese license, just to have the option available of renting or borrowing a car if the need arises. This means taking a written test and a closed course driving test. I’m not too worried, it’s just a bureaucratic PITA (taking the driving test your first time is an automatic fail, according to many).