I feel so trapped without a driving license… can’t go anywhere…
I think everyone has a driver’s license at 16 here in the US, but I’m already over 18 with no license… :(
20 - I could have gotten it sooner but driving is scary.
16 - parents
I taught a friend how to drive and he was in his mid 20’s when I taught him.
I was 27. Had an instructor and a friend who let me drive him around a bunch for practice. My mum got hers at 30. Just get it when you can afford it or you want/need it. There’s no rush.
I was 20 and learned from an instructor. To be fair, I’m from the Netherlands and cars don’t play such a big role here. I had a moped from when i was 17, so i was motorized. Although I bicycled for most of my trips under 10 kilometer (five miles).
I got my licence 2 years ago at 35! I initially tried at 16 but my mother was just horrible to drive with and scared me off learning for a long time. When I actually got it I did lessons with an instructor for a long time and that was much better for building my confidence.
14, rural communities have different rules I guess. My grandpa at 6 put me behind the wheel of his F350 while pulling a 20’ trailer so he could stand in the trailer and buck hay for all the livestock.
So by the time I got my license I already knew how to control a car and just had to learn the rules of the road.
When I was less than 10, my grandpa would have me steer his boat, so he could troll off the back. Only problem was that he was constantly telling me to slow down so the fish could catch his bait, while I wanted to open it up and fly!
License at 16, drove for the first time at 11 (on private property).
I’m 30 and have never learned. I live in a city with adequate public transit.
What a dream
I bought a car and learned to drive for the, errr, fun of it. Just like cycling, driving feels unlike any other common experience. However, working from home made it needed quite rarely.
A side effect is that I lost the feeling of fascinating go-with-the-flow orderly chaos when looking at traffic. Now it all has meaning.
I’ve tried getting my permit twice before, but the driving schools in my area are all in the middle of nowhere and difficult to schedule for adults.
I don’t have a license, because I live in a country with great public transport and never really saw the need to driving, especially in regards to outweighting the damage it does and the danger it poses.
Never. I’ve always been poor and it’s just not that necessary living in German cities. It would help a lot to be able to rent a car once in a while e.g. for moving apartments, but it seems like a bad idea to get a license and then only drive every couple of months, you’ll never build the skills to drive safely. It’s moot, though, I couldn’t afford the license itself anyway (pretty expensive in Germany).
How much?
Haven’t checked prices in a hot minute, but I think it’s about 3000€ right now, maybe more depending on the driving school and how many tries you need to pass the test.
Holy shit
13, special license in some US states for kids who live out in the middle of nowhere so they can get to school.
Learned from parents, grandparents, siblings, being around trucks and tractors and motorcycles since I was a toddler. I knew how to drive long before I got a license.
I never heard the school excuse, I thought they allowed rural kids to drive so they could handle farm vehicles.
My home state had a permit for that too, certain vehicles I could drive on certain roads under restrictive speed limits. So I could, like, drive a tractor or farm truck with the right license plates down county roads to another field.
That was separate from a school permit. The nearest school bus stop to me was miles away and didn’t go directly to my school so I would have spent 3+ hours per school day on multiple buses if I hadn’t been able to drive myself in. Not to mention sports on weekends and other stuff where the normal school day bus wasn’t running. My permit restricted the hours I could drive, it had to be to or from school or jobs, and I couldn’t give anyone rides other than siblings. I think I wasn’t supposed to drive on the interstate too.
21, both my grandmother, and an instructor.
Before then I feasibly had no way to drive, so it was just an extra cost for no benefit. Family didn’t have a car at all when I was 16, and I didn’t get my first car until shortly before I got my license. I also just hate driving, it wigs my anxiety out. It’s still the only car I’ve ever owned, and I sold it about a year ago.
I work from home, and only even borrow someone’s car or get a ride if I can’t get to a store on foot, which is one I only go to monthly. I’d still be borrowing a car if I could, though, I’m not sure I could carry 40 pounds of compressed sawdust home on foot. Even with that I likely won’t let the license expire, since it’s the same cost as an ID anyway.
I’m 40 and I got my licence in 2021. I pid 50$ to make sure(not USA), but never caused an accident with anyone.
I got my license in 2014 at the age of 19. Driving just didn’t interest me before cause only place I went was school and I had a bus to go there which didn’t charge me like the school did for people wanting to park there. Once I graduated and needed a job, that’s when I started learning to drive. My dad taught me everything by taking me to a local state park and occasionally letting me drive through town or on the interstate.
Edit: throwing this in that my gf is 33 and still never had a license. She tried in the past, but nobody took her driving and I couldn’t cause I live 600 miles away. She’s trying again since her family has more free time now to do it.
18 from a school. Letting 16 year olds drive is insanity.
::: spoiler
:::
I had a girlfriend whose 95 year old immigrant grandmother used to walk to the grocery store every day, crossing a major road.
She died crossing that road, when she was hit by a 16 yo girl who had just gotten her license, and was on her first solo drive.
