I’ve just spent some time reading through all your replies and I want to say thank you to each of you, especially those of you who offered helpful and constructive advice, and shared your own view points.
To answer a few questions -
yes, I do think he’s being taken advantage of. He met this girl via a friend around the beginning of the year and it transpired that they were going the same college course this year. She had a failing out with the mutal friend and my ds didn’t hear from her then until the end of the summer when she got in contact about their course. The buses around here are awful and I doubt they would spend any time together socially if neither of them drove. She does offer him petrol money but I’m not convinced she ever hands it over. Before anyone tells me awful for thinking this - I say none of this to him - I encourage him to have friendships even if they are not the ones I’d choose for him!
He does contribute to fuel, probably not as much as he uses. He does run errands for me in the car (picking up younger brother) which is kind of in return for borrowing tte car. this isn’t every night bye, maybe once a week on weeknights and once a weekend night - he is normally really sensible about recognising when he needs to get enough sleep - weeknight occurrences have only been an issue since this new friendship.
To make it clear - he has NO idea about how anxious I get when he’s out and about or that I don’t settle (insomnia for years - not due to this but peri-menopause and other life stuff, this has just caused it to flair!) and I won’t tell him because I will not allow it to impact how he lives his life. We have a good relationship - and to reassure a previous poster - I am definitely not smothering. I’m no helicopter parent, I don’t fuss - to him - about where he is or what he’s doing. Believe me, if I was suffocating he’d know exactly how I really felt about his coastal paddle boarding, his ‘tombstoning’, his climbing and all the other activities that my overactive imagination does it’s best to convince me are super dangerous and will kill him. I have never, and will never, prevent him from living his life and having fun just because his activities cause me anxiety.
last night I was anxious, the weather was awful, and I didn’t know until then where he was. For those of you who suggested an app like find my iPhone - he actually suggested this a while ago just so we all know where each other are - it’s a mixed blessing. For anyone that knows the area will tell you, the mobile signals here are really patchy! So seeing his little icon not moving half way up a country road on a mountain side really doesn’t help - so I don’t use it (his dad will check now and again, but if I had it, I think I’d be too intrusive and I respect his privacy too much to risk overstepping).
As a pp mentioned, it’s not to long since a group of young lads lost their lives to a tragic accident driving in Snowdonia at night - the weather and road conditions weren’t particularly bad, it was just an awful awful accident. It took song long to find them because they couldn’t get a lock on the phone signals.
I do appreciate the advice of those who suggested approaching this from the perspective of how disruptive it can be to others - I’m going to have a chat - adult to adult - with him about this when the opportunity arises (he is actual quite quiet when he comes in and we have a ‘cough’ signal! lol) but he does wake his brother on occasion when he uses the bathroom. Everything seems so much louder in a silent house, doesn’t it?
im going to look into some of the suggested techniques and counselling that some posters have mentioned, thank you.
Finally, he got home about 3:15am last night, and on getting up this morning he offered the information that it took so long because he kept pulling over whenever the rain got so heavy that he felt his visibility was being affected. So he is a sensible lad, and I do trust him, I just need to convince those anxiety demons of that!
thanks all xx