To not let 15 year old drive my children around?

[Shabooboogaloo]

Just back from half term with family in USA.
Where they live 15 year olds can drive (!) due to crap local transport.
15 year old DN has been driving to school, around town etc for 6+ months and was apparently excited to get to take my kids (10 and 12) out in the car to the local coffee place a few miles away. On their own.

Now - if they were walking I would have let the 3 get on with it, go out together but there was NO WAY I was letting them go out in a SUV in a city on their own.

Had a quiet word with the mom to that effect. Everyone thought I was the ultimate buzzkill and a bit insulting to the 15 year old. my offer to go with them was shot down. The trip didn’t happen.

YABU - fun police! It would have been fine and the 15 year old would have been able to handle it sensibly.

YANBU - 15 is too young to be responsible for young passengers, too young to be in the roads alone in fact.

Hell would freeze over before I'd allow my dd to be driven around by a 15 year old.

As I expected, Google says: According to the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, drivers between the ages of 16 and 17 are more likely to be involved in car accidents than drivers from any other age group. Additionally, teen drivers cause more injuries and deaths than other drivers, including injuries to themselves.

"if they were walking I would have let the 3 get on with it"

Well that's unreasonable if there's no footpaths. Far safer in a car in that environment

In actual fact, I remember back in the day when my friendship group all started getting their first cars aged 17, and the boys all drove like absolute entitled dickheads. My boyfriend at the time drove across a crossroads with a 30mph limit at 80mph, straight across without pausing at the junction, with us all screaming in the back for him to stop. If something had been coming the other way we would have been killed. They treated the cars like toys. The girls in the group all had accidents in their cars, albeit they generally tried to drive sensibly.

My dad came from a part of the states (and time) when they drove form 14. He found it surprising how small car parks were in British schools. He used to get pretty stressed at 18 and 19 year olds drinking, even sensibly. It’s just a cultural difference and so dependant on the individuals.

‘no one gets a full unrestricted license at 15.’

I didn’t say it was a full unrestricted licence, but teen is allowed to ( I assume as the parents aren’t lawbreaking types) take passengers as a driver.
There are deffo restrictions on the time of day teen can drive. Not at night eg
At 16 the licence will be a full one.

At the same time you came off looking like an American parent would if they were over here on holiday refusing their 20 year old child to have an alcoholic drink. Different places different rules

I'm American and would like to know why you won't name the state.

Also, there is no county in the US that has rules governing driving. It is purely a state matter.

I've lived in 13 states and 2 foreign countries on 3 different continents and the worst driving I've ever encountered was in Europe, but you won't find me starting threads about those crazy Europeans and their wild driving ways, because my experiences are anecdotal, not empirical.

This is just another thinly-disguised America-bashing thread full of misinformation and the usual swipes about hunting and guns. This site rarely goes more than a day or two without one.

It’s NOT an American bashing thread! I love the US, my kids are half US, it’s a fantastic country in many many ways.
I was asking the question because I didn’t think I was being AIBU but was genuinely interested in the opinion of non Americans as the family all seemed to think I was being a bit precious.
That is all. And I haven’t named the state the same way that many posters leave out details - so as not to be outed IRL! Not that it matters as there are loads of state that allow children this age to drive.
And no, I didn’t know that states regulate rules around driving rather than counties, but there you go. I’m so used to rules and regs changing from area to area in other stuff.

But as I said, just because it’s legal - like buying AR-15s at Walmart or Dicks- doesn’t mean I have to partake, agree or allow my kids too!

For those tut-tutting the lack of footpaths and wondering why 15-year-olds drive, it's because https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:United_Kingdom_%E2%80%93_U.S._area_comparison.jpg

How on earth is naming a state going to "out"you?

There’s no way naming the state would be outing - anymore than the personal details you’ve given.

And there was quite bit of sneering at Americans/America in many of your replies.

I’m British living in America and it’s infuriating to hear the generalizations you get about this vast country where there’s so much difference between the states. It’s like claiming all Europeans are the same.

There is one state, ONE, where this is legal: to drive under 16 anywhere they want with an unlimited number of passengers, indicating that it’s not a restricted license. ONE STATE and as you can guess, it’s one of the least populated. So either OP went there and it’s just poor luck or… perhaps there was a misunderstanding? Counties do NOT set driving laws about licenses; only states do and each state has its own laws about how teens can become drivers. Most of them now have graduated laws, so a teen can get their license at 16 but still cannot drive between 10pm and 6am, and then can only have one other passenger under 21 in the car until they are 17 and then become “unrestricted” at 18, when they are a legal adult.

Considering you’ve just generalised Europe what are you complaining about?

‘I’m British living in America and it’s infuriating to hear the generalizations you get about this vast country ‘

okaaayyyy… I’m not generalising. I’m talking about a very specific situation. Where a specific AGE is relevant. If DN was 18 or 19 it would have been entirely different.
Although, it’s NOT actually a generalisation to say that all states issues licences by the age of 16 to those who want them, is it? Because I think that’s true for all states - because of the poor public transport and vast distances in huge swathes of the country.

YANBU

I would not have allowed this either!

And I have lived, worked and travelled in the US so I know what public transport can be like outside of major cities ( and in some cases even in them too)

Actually that’s the very opposite of what I was doing - I’m saying just as you can’t generalize about all Europeans being the same from Scotland to Sweden etc. then you shouldn’t make sweeping generalizations about ‘Americans’.

No, OP, that’s a huge generalisation. “All states” have EXTREMELY different rules on how they determine licensing requirements. You can get a learner’s permit at a certain age which means you are allowed to learn to drive once you’ve taken a driver’s education course in a classroom, and then you get a restricted license at a certain age (often 16 but not always - and it’s called “restricted” for a reason) and then you get your full, unrestricted license now usually at 18. Every state is its own fiefdom. Also, this info is on Wikipedia. It really couldn’t be any easier to stop making generalizations and just look it up instead.

So is DN male or female?

Loads of posts seem to refer to DN being a 'her' but I can't see that OP has said?

It would make a difference to whether I'd allow it myself, as young males are much more likely to be impulsive and get carried away showing off but, having said that, the US has a horrendous record when it comes to road deaths anyway so anything adding risk doesn't seem great.

Re-read your own post. You did.
‘the worst driving I’ve ever encountered was in Europe’

Which bit? Ireland? Greece? Germany?
All very different nations with differing rules, customs and standards.

I think you have confused me with another poster - I didn’t mention anything about driving in Europe.

Many are 16.5 for the restricted provisional license and New Jersey is 17.

One state doesn’t give the unrestricted license until 21 - which means 20 year olds are not allowed to drive unsupervised overnight which is a lot stricter than the UK.

I wouldn’t have batted an eye, but my 14yo currently has a learners permit. She already has a car, a hand-me-down. I can’t wait to stop driving her in a couple of months.

I think apart from actually driving my kids (which I think there would be absolutely no chance at 15) I would be worried about if the 15 year old would be able to handle looking after the kids on their own.

Kids can be funny when adults aren;t around, they could easily play up and cause an issue the 15 year old can't handle. OR, in an emergency, would they be mature enough to know what to do?

Have you seen the extent of a US driving test? It is minimal

At 15, with merely 6 months driving experience, you are definitely not responsible or experienced enough to be in charge of other people’s kids in a car.

OP, you are definitely NOT being unreasonable

@MaloneMeadow So I’ve just read back and found the post you quoted from about Europeans and it was by @LifeExperience who was also doing the opposite of a sweeping generalization - in fact the bit you took out of context was explaining exactly why you can’t base a view of a whole continent or country on anecdotal evidence:

I’ve lived in 13 states and 2 foreign countries on 3 different continents and the worst driving I've ever encountered was in Europe, but you won't find me starting threads about those crazy Europeans and their wild driving ways, because my experiences are anecdotal, not empirical.