about drive

Welcome to A2K! Most states define this for you. Typical is 15 for learner's permit, 16 to drive alone. Can a 12 or 13 year old actually handle a car? Probably, but I'd like more maturity handling something that can very easily kill the driver or those around them. I think the existing age limit is about correct.

I dont know. I grew up in a rural area. Learned how to drive around 13 or 14. I mean I didn't drive my mom into town for shopping or anything. But on the back dirt roads and the fields I would drive in an old beat up truck.

It was a good bonding experience for me and my father. I think it depends on where you live. In the city: wait for the class and the proper age, unless you can take them some where void of human life lol.

That 's true qua public roads, not private land.

yeah, I was driving tractors, farm trucks etc by age 12 so learned the mechanics of driving long before I learned to drive in public.

drive is all fine and well, but what about ambition

Never too early. I grew up on a farm driving tractors, farm implements, ranch trucks, dirt bikes, 4-wheelers, and all kinds of powered things... of course with proper supervision.

When I was 5 I pestered my dad so much to teach me how to drive, here is what he did. He backed his 69 chevy pickup with three-on-the-tree down to the bank beside the river, put me in the driver's seat and said, "get the truck back to the house." I tore up the yard, but he had taught me enough about cars that I knew what to do, and he was right beside me giving pointers and protection.

Nothing is more dangerous than a new driver who has been protected from learning until the last minute.

As a result of my early education I can proudly say that after 20 years of driving (including over 1 million miles on a CDL in school buses, motocoaches, dump trucks, and 80,000-lb semis,) I have never had a single accident that was my fault. And I have been able to maneuver all of those vehicles in such a manner that I was able to avoid all but three fender benders caused by others.

Teach them early, teach them well, supervise and educate. States will give a license to anyone with a pulse and a signature, so its up to the parent/guardian to improve the safety on the roads by educating.

Of course, this is all off the road for legal purposes. As far as the government assigning a legal age at which all teens are capable of driving... that's like assigning 18 as the age of consent. I know 8 year olds who are more competent at choosing their destiny than many 18 year olds. By the same notion, I know 12 year olds who could drive better than 30 year olds.

As far as legally driving on the road, follow the law if you want to avoid prosecution. As far as teaching your child to drive, start them when they show interest. You may have a child like my Mother was... she got her license at 27 because she had to for gas rationing. She had no interest in driving. She is now 60 and has frightened me since I was 4 in a car. Or you may have a child like I was... ready to hit the road at 13 and be safer than most.

And then there is the adult who's learning how to drive. After my grandmother passed away, we found an old newspaper article from the late 1920s that described how she and my grandfather had been arrested. My grandmother was arrested for driving a car through a hat shop window in downtown Manhattan. My grandfather was arrested for letting her drive without a license. We always wondered why my grandmother never got a driver's license. She always said it was because she never had the desire. Guess I wouldn't have wanted to either after I'd wound up with ladies' hats as hood ornaments. ;-)

My dead friend, Neil, fought in the Pacific Theater in WWII.
He said that on occasions when the Japs had captured Americans,
thay beat Americans who were not able to continue marching
(think Baatan Death March). On some occasions, the Americans
told them that their trucks had broken down, hence the trucks
woud not keep moving, whereupon, the Japs beat the trucks to make them go.





David

One summer maybe 15 years ago, I was at a resort.
There were several young children there
and it arose in conversation that thay yearned to drive.

Inasmuch as no public roads were involved,
I let them move my car around a few times, as I sat in the passenger seat.
When I was their age, I had wanted to do that.





David