To be worried about my nearly 17 year old being driven 40 minutes away on A road by friend

[rhinobaby]

When do you allow your teens to be driven by their friends who have just passed their driving tests?
Friend is 17, just passed (first time to be fair)
Car accident biggest cause of death in this age group, risks higher with bunch of mates in the car.
what did you do?

When I passed my test at 17, the instructor dropped me home, had a hug from my parents, then off I went to pick up my friends in my little Vauxhall Nova and whizzed down the motorway to the shopping centre that was about 30 mins away 🤣🤣

You are not being unreasonable to worry. For us it depended on the friends. Ds1's friendship group is a fairly geeky crowd, pretty sensible and not prone to rash decisions. We were happy to let him go in friends cars for planned journeys. Ds2's crowd on the other hand are rather more... flighty, shall we say! We offer to do a lot of the driving around, as do some other other parents.

@metalmaude

"Not in England, you are not even elidable to apply - if you get special permission to go before 18 you need to take a parent with you"

OP didn't say anything about this thread being restricted to residents of England only.

It's one of the most difficult parts of being a parent. So many devastated parents due to road accidents among the young. I would look at the car too. Is it a steady on the road type or a boy racer type asking for trouble. So glad to be past that aspect of parenting..

Sounds completely overprotective to me, and I just think this is totally unreasonable.

why is it over protective to protect your teen from the single most likely cause of death or disability that they face? If you protect against anything, you protect against this. No other danger is as great

A friend of mine nearly slammed us into a lamppost on her first outing after passing hper test. We were lucky. I had a colleague whose son passed his test and drove some friends to a festival the following weekend. None of them came back alive. The statistics are clear on this - it's hugely risky being a new teenage driver and doubly so if they are distracted by friends. I would strongly discourage!

Not remotely over protective. Anyone who has teenagers will know of a tragedy involving young drivers.
We live in the sticks where every single 17 year old gets their licence adap.
When mine were at that age my rules were; no lifts with new drivers and no passengers allowed when they passed their tests for at least a year.
I decided it was one of those things where I was prepared to be unpopular but stuck to it. It meant I had to do many more lifts than if I had just left them to it.

It is scary. My son wanted to drive to a party a couple of days after passing and I'll be honest internally I wanted him to fail for that reason... !

As it was he passed with flying colours and hasn't looked back. It is unnerving, most of his friends live 15+ miles away down motorways and country lanes, and he thinks nothing of driving in the early hours. He's confident without being cocky. This is by far the hardest part of being a parent though!

My son passed his driving test at 17 and had to drive to work, college etc. He also used to pick his mated up from time to time and take them places from time to time. He had one of those black boxes fitted that meant he couldn't exceed certain speeds and I have to admit it was reassuring.

YANBU to be worried but we do have to let them go sooner or later! Rural roads scare me more than motorways. The black box is reassuring.

I know someone who went to uni at 17 also. They went to Cardiff and lived in halls like everyone else! They turned 18 in the December after starting in Sept (and moaned for three months because they couldn't go out drinking!)

I skipped a year at school, I went to uni in England at 17, lived in halls, my age was never questioned.

My parents used to follow me in their car the first few times I drove my own car after passing my test 😂😂😂😂 i still accepted this over being driven as I was so keen to drive