Young Drivers

[WrenChasen]

I know he's the the human equivalent of Marmite, but there are times when I agree with Clarkson, and this is one of them. I can think of at least four teenagers of my acqaintance who have absolutely no interest in learning to drive. One is academically brilliant, but also autistic and feels overwhelmed at the prospect, another has inherited his parents' green idealology and won't drive on principle, the third can't see the point as the taxi of mum and dad is readily available, and the fourth readily admits he enjoys a drink or three rather too much and wouldn't trust himself not to drive while over the limit.

Times and attitudes change, I suppose, but passing the driving test was a badge of honour when I was at school - and, admittedly, a lot easier to achieve.

https://www.theknowledge.com/p/dont-you ... ve-anymore

[Mike4]

I know he's the the human equivalent of Marmite, but there are times when I agree with Clarkson, and this is one of them. I can think of at least four teenagers of my acqaintance who have absolutely no interest in learning to drive. One is academically brilliant, but also autistic and feels overwhelmed at the prospect, another has inherited his parents' green idealology and won't drive on principle, the third can't see the point as the taxi of mum and dad is readily available, and the fourth readily admits he enjoys a drink or three rather too much and wouldn't trust himself not to drive while over the limit.

Times and attitudes change, I suppose, but passing the driving test was a badge of honour when I was at school - and, admittedly, a lot easier to achieve.

https://www.theknowledge.com/p/dont-you ... ve-anymore

Yep, same here. I was champing at the bit to learn to drive. I got my first car aged 16 and had it in bits on the drive of my parents' house for six months learning how it all worked before getting my provisional licence and my driving lessons started the instant I turned 17. Yet none of my kids seemed overly keen to learn to drive, so good was the bus and train service in and around Reading where we lived! They all learned to drive eventually but all saw it as a necessary chore rather than an exciting rite of passage.

Also drinking and driving. As a teenager we were careful to observe the limit by my kids won't drive if they've consumed any alcohol at all., and this attitude seems commonplace now.

[bungeejumper]

Getting your licence is still a rite of passage, out here in the sticks where the buses don't run**. A neighbour's 25 year old daughter has just passed her test after three fails, and it's as though her social life has suddenly opened wide. We are really pleased for her, because being virtually housebound with her mum was getting her down and her confidence was starting to go.

Of course, she'll still be borrowing her mum's car, so I'd doubt that she'll drink. She's a sensible kid. Mind you, I was a bit of a goody teenager myself until I got my first motorbike, aged 16. I only had a pillion seat for the girls, but my new mobility kick-started my sex social life like nothing else could have.

As an aside, I read somewhere that the invention of the bicycle added ten points to the nation's average IQ. When you were no longer restricted to dating only the girls who lived within a three mile radius, many of whom were likely to be some sort of relatives, the process of marriage and procreation suddenly became a whole lot less risky.

BJ

** Taxis, you say? A nice eco-alternative, but it's forty quid for the return trip to our nearest main line railway station. It's not easy being green.

[tjh290633]

My first experience of driving was when an uncle was delivering bread during his college vacations. He stopped on a quiet country road and put me in the driving seat, aged 14. That was just starting and stopping. Another time I went through the gears. Later another uncle lived up a long private road, and I had several trips along there before I was 17. Then yet another uncle, who had been an instructor on Armoured Cars in the Northwest Frontier in the 1930s, gave me lessons on his Morris 8 as soon as I was 17. I passed my test first time about 6 weeks later.

Opportunities for driving were relatively few until I bought my first vehicle when I was 22. That was an ex-GPO Telephone van, and served me well for two years. Based on the same Morris 8 series E on which I had taken my test in 1950. No luxuries, 3 speed gearbox, and one door mirror. Learning to reverse using the mirror was a great advantage, when it came to driving minibuses 50 years later.

Nowadays the insurance would be a major snag. Back in 1956 I think that I paid about £1.50 for 3rd party, fire and theft. The van cost £75 by comparison, and petrol was 4 bob a gallon.

TJH

[Rhyd6]

My dad bought me a second hand series 1 Landy in 1959 and it's still going strong today. All of my grandkids have learnt to drive in it and my 10 & 8 years old gt grandchildren love getting behind the wheel, in fact the youngest one asked if I'd leave it to her in my will as by then she should be old enough to pass her test!!. There are no buses or trains in our area and if youngsters want a social life they need to be able to have some form of transport and most parents are fed up to the back teeth of beintg a taxi service by the time the kids are old enough to drive.

R6

[the0ni0nking]

When both my brother and I reached 17, our parents paid for us to have lessons - be it either after Sixth Form or on a weekend. We were both fortunate that no contribution was required by us.

I think I passed my test in Jan-98 - thankfully first time (as given my brother passed first time, it was imperative that I did too!).

I then went away to uni that summer, spent 3 years there before getting a job which was in the city centre and quicker/easier reachable by bus than car due to bus lanes etc.

I've moved around a fair bit since then including a spell working overseas but even now at 44, I've still never had a car (or a motorbike). I did have a period of time where I was in receipt of car allowance but I'm not sure any of the important people at work cared that I didn't have one on my driveway! They eventually did away with car allowance and added it to your base salary - which was perfect for me as it meant it became pensionable whereas previously it wasn't!

But what this probably means, is I'm a less expereinced driver than people probably 25 years younger than me but I doubt that would be reflected in our respective insurances!

[stewamax]

I read somewhere that the invention of the bicycle added ten points to the nation's average IQ. When you were no longer restricted to dating only the girls who lived within a three mile radius, many of whom were likely to be some sort of relatives, the process of marriage and procreation suddenly became a whole lot less risky.

Before the Reformation and when England's population was predominantly rural, the local RC priest must have turned a lot of Nelsonian eyes to marriages that of necessity would have been illegally consanguinous since the church prohibited marriages of those related to the fourth degree or closer: you could not marry your third cousin and before 1215 you couldn't even marry your sixth cousin. Perhaps it is fortunate that the Swedes, Norwegians, Danes and later the Jutes (more Danes), Angles, Saxons et alia paid us visits and intermarried.

The advent in the 1880s of young women in rural communities being able to cycle without too much male opprobrium meant that they could look further afield. The thought of a few being 'encouraged' by men to ride side-saddle beggars the imagination, although I believe it was possible and appears to have become accepted long before respectable women would ride astride on a horse.

[UncleEbenezer]

Yep, same here. I was champing at the bit to learn to drive. I got my first car aged 16

Strewth! How the other half lived, even back in (I guess?) the 1970s!

I was not far off that age when my parents got their first car - they were very much a luxury of the rich back then. Out in the sticks with nothing for a teenager to do, and the hour-long 17-mile bus journey to school was a blight on my life that led me to a vow to avoid commuting in adult life. Getting a bike was definitely a liberation, though it mostly came into its own with the move to Cambrridge - short distances, and flat terrain for an extra bonus!

[Bminusrob]

It must depend where you live. Here in rural North Devon, youngsters are desperate to learn to drive. To all intents and purposes, there is no public transport in the area, so without being able to drive, and having access to a car, you are more or less under house arrest.

Unfortunately, politicians live in London and big cities, and don't understand rural life. With the cost of car insurance as it is at the moment, there will be an ever increasing poverty gap between rural people and city drwllers.

[Mike4]

Yep, same here. I was champing at the bit to learn to drive. I got my first car aged 16

Strewth! How the other half lived, even back in (I guess?) the 1970s!

I was not far off that age when my parents got their first car - they were very much a luxury of the rich back then. Out in the sticks with nothing for a teenager to do, and the hour-long 17-mile bus journey to school was a blight on my life that led me to a vow to avoid commuting in adult life. Getting a bike was definitely a liberation, though it mostly came into its own with the move to Cambrridge - short distances, and flat terrain for an extra bonus!

It would have been 1971. It was a 15 year old Austin A35 which cost me £20, which I'd saved up from my Saturday job mending bikes in the town bike shop earning 70p a day.

Got my first proper two-wheeled bike aged about five (at a guess), and I was GONE! I discovered the freedom of having a bike very early and transition to a car was a similar step up in freedom.

[UncleEbenezer]

It must depend where you live. Here in rural North Devon, youngsters are desperate to learn to drive. To all intents and purposes, there is no public transport in the area, so without being able to drive, and having access to a car, you are more or less under house arrest.

Unfortunately, politicians live in London and big cities, and don't understand rural life. With the cost of car insurance as it is at the moment, there will be an ever increasing poverty gap between rural people and city drwllers.

So what your young people need (and even more so people who are less physically able and don't drive) is a society that doesn't marginalise and socially exclude non-drivers. A couple of generations back, before the ubiquity of the car had led to the closure of local facilities such as village shops, schools, and entertainment venues.

[UncleEbenezer]

It would have been 1971. It was a 15 year old Austin A35 which cost me £20, which I'd saved up from my Saturday job mending bikes in the town bike shop earning 70p a day.

Your running costs would surely have been more of an issue than the £20. Could you even tax and insure it for that, let alone maintain it and fill the tank?

[Mike4]

It must depend where you live. Here in rural North Devon, youngsters are desperate to learn to drive. To all intents and purposes, there is no public transport in the area, so without being able to drive, and having access to a car, you are more or less under house arrest.

Unfortunately, politicians live in London and big cities, and don't understand rural life. With the cost of car insurance as it is at the moment, there will be an ever increasing poverty gap between rural people and city drwllers.

So what your young people need (and even more so people who are less physically able and don't drive) is a society that doesn't marginalise and socially exclude non-drivers. A couple of generations back, before the ubiquity of the car had led to the closure of local facilities such as village shops, schools, and entertainment venues.

On the other hand the closure of millions of small shops and replacement with far fewer supermarkets led to economies of scale, lower prices and a corresponding increase in wealth/standard of living for the masses. Similarly with the mechanisation of farming, and production-line manufacturing. And latterly computerisation of offices.

[UncleEbenezer]

So what your young people need (and even more so people who are less physically able and don't drive) is a society that doesn't marginalise and socially exclude non-drivers. A couple of generations back, before the ubiquity of the car had led to the closure of local facilities such as village shops, schools, and entertainment venues.

On the other hand the closure of millions of small shops and replacement with far fewer supermarkets led to economies of scale, lower prices and a corresponding increase in wealth/standard of living for the masses. Similarly with the mechanisation of farming, and production-line manufacturing. And latterly computerisation of offices.

Indeed, and the move online of many of those things helps a lot with problems of isolation. That's why more than half my working life has involved the development of the technology of our online world: it's something I can do that's really useful and whose time has come.

That'll also be a factor - among others, of course - in today's younger generations' life choices.

Here, for example, is something I wrote back in 2006, when my publisher insisted my book had to have a dedication ...

To all who share my dream, and are working to help make it happen ….

…. the dream of a world where your work, your colleagues, and your opportunities in life are not dictated by where you live, or how far you commute. Where the old-fashioned office of the 19th and 20th centuries has passed into history, along with its soul-destroying bums-on-seats culture and Dilbertian work practices. A world inclusive of those who cannot work in a standard office. A world inclusive of those who reject car-dependence, but embrace a full and active life. A world inclusive of those who seek to fit study and learning in to a busy life, yet have no accessible library, let alone university. Of those who are housebound ….

Our information infrastructure is poised to liberate us all. We who [have an interest in this book] are playing a small but exciting part in that. This work is dedicated to all of us!

[moorfield]

We expect Moorfield Jr to be driving this autumn and will need their own car for work (so not a named driver).

Initial insurance quotes I've researched for a just passed new driver in a low category car third party only are somewhere between £3500-£4000 currently.

[the0ni0nking]

Out in the sticks with nothing for a teenager to do, and the hour-long 17-mile bus journey to school was a blight on my life that led me to a vow to avoid commuting in adult life. Getting a bike was definitely a liberation, though it mostly came into its own with the move to Cambrridge - short distances, and flat terrain for an extra bonus!

I had an hour long bus journey every day to school - never really bothered me.

I was probably more bothered by the smoke I had to inhale due to my fellow pupils smoking!

[Howyoudoin]

Interesting topic.

I didn’t learn to drive until I was 26. Despite my father being a professional protection driver in the Police, driving didn’t really interest me.

I gave up driving about 12 years ago as I had become a Sunday driver and was forever charging the battery.

I thought that was it for me driving but recent events (having a child) have meant that I’ve just renewed my licence. Having no real interest in cars I was amazed how much things have changed when my younger brother took me out for a spin in his nearly new MG recently.

Apart from being a hybrid, the amount of bells and whistles on the dashboard (including assisted parking etc) were both exciting and daunting to me.

Should be interesting when I buy a second hand car and get behind the wheel again.

HYD

[didds]

We expect Moorfield Jr to be driving this autumn and will need their own car for work (so not a named driver).

Initial insurance quotes I've researched for a just passed new driver in a low category car third party only are somewhere between £3500-£4000 currently.

and wait until they pass the test - the premium will go UP.

[didds]

** Taxis, you say? A nice eco-alternative, but it's forty quid for the return trip to our nearest main line railway station. It's not easy being green.

AS BJ knows, we live not that far from him. Taxis? After dark? Hen's teeth mostly here.

So even if you have £40 there s likely no taxi to spend £40 on.

Ah - I hear somebody shouting "Uber" at the back. The only thing that "Uber" means round here is German for "over".