To think 17 is too young to drive

You may well be right that 17 year olds either shouldn't be driving, or should have additional restrictions to mitigate risk.

However as far as this goes:

"My SIL has forbidden my soon to be 17 DN to drive until they are 21. I'm increasingly thinking she is right. She is a paediatrician and not ignorant of teen brain development. AIBU?"

The fact is that a 17 year old is in many ways an adult (including crucially the right to leave home, and therefore be able to drive despite being "forbidden" to do so), and a year later they're legally an adult.

Adults don't "forbid" each other from doing things.

You can't "forbid" an 18+ year old from doing anything and you'll struggle with a determined 17 yo.

The problem is that our society is set up so you have to drive for nearly everything and even when public transport is available, it's unreliable and expensive.

Considering that just about everyone needs to learn and the older you get the harder it is, I'll be getting my DD a course of lessons the moment she is old enough to take them.

Yep I find it utterly bizarre. And we could reduce those deaths easily. I guess it’s heads firmly in the sand…

Don’t be a dick. It was obviously a typo and we are talking about 1600 teenage lives here…

Do you have a crystal 🔮 ball? 2033, aye?

That's a bit of a sweeping statement to say that 17yr olds have a had a few lessons when passing. We have just spent an absolute fortune on them as well as taking her out ourselves in a car we maintain for her. When you had these years of lessons were you going out everyday in a car to practice? My daughter went out with us or her instructor most days in all weathers and all times of day.

Yep that would have a huge impact on accidents here. Most countries seem to have better laws around this than ours.

I’m sure I sighed a petition a while ago but nothing changes and more groups of teenagers die in cars.

Yep this is my point. Car accidents are the biggest risk to our teenagers lives. Yet no appetite to change any laws to make this safer! And it would be so easy to do - other counties have.

Sorry, only read first two pages so may have been posted already. In Australia, or maybe just New South Wales, they have restrictions on young drivers. They seem quite evidence based e.g. you can drive a family member at night but not a group of friends the same age.

https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/targeted-restrictions-teenage-drivers-promising-approach-improving-road-safety
www.nsw.gov.au/driving-boating-and-transport/driver-and-rider-licences/driver-licences/provisional-p1-licence

I don’t think you can control who the driver is. So you’re willing to take a risk on your DS/DD getting in a car with all their mates and trusting that 17 year old driver newly qualified driver?. Cars full of teenagers are 4 times more likely to be involved in an accident. We could change that by having rules around passengers like other countries do.

There’s a bit of an element of ‘oh that won’t happen to my DS/DD’ on here - but the risk is there and it’s considerable. Why wouldn’t people welcome measures to reduce that risk? Are every single one of their mates sensible?

My DD passed 3 months after her 17th birthday. I wanted her to be the driver rather than be driven. I always looked at it as a vital skill, like learning to cycle or swim. But she’s always been sensible. I’m not sure how I’d felt if I had a boy, but probably would have done the same, I’d rather mine was the driver.

How to say “I don’t run a business” without saying “I don’t run a business”.

The cost of employment is high enough as it is. Paying for a taxi to ferry a young person from a rural pub at midnight could cost almost as much as the person was paid for their evening shift! It cost me £40 to take a 10 miles taxi trip across rural Suffolk at around midnight last year.

The motorways on our doorstep are busy and notorious for bad accidents and there have been several recently. It’s not my DC I’m as bothered about, it’s other drivers. A couple of extra lessons with an instructor just to familiarise will be worth it for us.

I think that’s a bit short sighted about black boxes TBH. A black box has worked really well for my daughter for the last year. Most teenagers we know have them and drive frequently to get to work so insurance cancellation isn’t relevant.
There are loads of positives, detailed reports on your driving on things like cornering and breaking, limits on speed, cheaper insurance etc. I think they should be mandatory for young people, I’m actually a bit shocked when parents are prepared to pay more money to not have one. I have driven my daughter’s car often and it really does make you think about your driving.

Motorways are the easiest part of driving, and if you’re good enough to pass your test, you shouldn’t need to book multiple lessons to learn how to use them, especially as dual carriageways with fly-overs are motorways in all but name and can be accessed by learner drivers.

It already exists with insurance cost. Hardly any drive powerful cars.

How are they to get to work or college? Particularly in the Highlands, but also in most other parts of the country driving is required.

I'm against black boxes as there are too many problems with them. Insurance gets cancelled automatically if they don't drive frequently enough, for example.

You can't eliminate all risks from life. Locking all men away until they are 35 would mean there is hardly any dangerous driving or crime.

There should also be limits on the size of engine you can have in the first year after you pass your test if under a certain age. To stop teenagers shoeing off in cars that are too powerful for them. But I don’t know how you’d enforce it.

Exactly, there really is an issue infantalizing young people.

My dd is about to turn 18 and passed her driving test 3 months ago. I have been in the car with her several times and feel as safe with her as anyone else, obviously she’s still gaining experience though but can see her gaining in experience and confidence each time we go out.

We’ve drummed it into her since she started learning, the responsibility that comes with driving and potential consequences. She has openly said to anyone she gives lifts to, if they muck around whilst she’s driving they’ll have to get out. She’s in no hurry to take the P plates off her car and make it clear to other road uses she’s a new driver.

For milestones such as motorway driving, driving in the dark etc, she’s been out with an experienced driver before doing it on her own

its perfectly possible to drive safely at that age as it was for us so I don’t think the age should change. However I do think laws could and should be tightened (e.g mandatory black boxes that monitor speed, limits on engine sizes, a time period before carrying passengers etc). There’s plenty that can be done to addresss problems caused by less mature 17 year olds without limiting the more mature from having the same independence we had

Because we have a thing called cars and adult responsibility?