Do you allow your 17-year-old to…

[Topray]

Have completely unrestricted and unsupervised phone access (so not even having to leave phone downstairs at nighttime)

Work part-time if still at school or college.

Learn to drive (either self-funded from wages or with parental help)

Travel in a car driven by a 17-year-old

Stay overnight at the home of a friend you do not know

Use public transport alone at night

Regulate their own sleep, even if this means getting out of bed at 3pm on a weekend

Stay home alone overnight or for multiple days

Be out and about without you know really knowing exactly where they are at any given moment

Mine are not yet 17 but yes, I would allow all of those things.

My eldest is currently (just) 15 and still allows me to have a parental control on his phone - it's really just for usage aspects as he knows he has poor self-control in that regard and would stay up all night watching Brooklyn 99 on it if not. But, and I must stress this, it's fully with his agreement and I would (reluctantly) turn it off if asked.

The regulating of sleep is interesting - I had ballet lessons at 9 on a Saturday (until 16ish) and worked on a Sunday so the only lie in I ever got was a Saturday once I stopped the ballet. My mum would still try and wake me up by about 9 and I would blow my top at her. I do try and lever mine out of bed by about midday most weekends but I'm not too precious!

Yes to all, but I would hope that my DC would share info about where they are, where they are going so we sort of know what they’re up to!

yes to all of them, except for 'Stay home alone overnight or for multiple days'.

I wasn't allowed to stay home overnight alone for multiple days until I was 18, but this is perhaps due to the fact that I'm a Winter birthday with a younger sibling, so my parent didn't go away for multiple nights in a row without us whilst I was 17, as I was still invited on family holiday that year. (Sibling was definitely less responsible than me at similar ages, so there was also some of them laying the groundwork of 'you can't stay home alone overnight until you're 18' for them too).
I think I may have been allowed to stay home alone for one night (or at least until early hours of the morning) whilst my sibling was staying at grandparents or friends houses.

The 'knowing exactly where you are at all times' seems to have come in in the past 5 years or so with the tracking apps on mobile phones getting much more common. Ten years ago I didn't know anyone who's parents were tracking them through location sharing all the time, but I know plenty of parents who track teenagers now, and even some parents who track their adult children!

No, my post states he’s been left once. Its rare I do a night shift, maybe one every few months. He normally goes to family but he hates it and begged me to let him stay at home, he's a sensible lad and very independant. I checked in with him by phone a couple of times before it got too late (It was weekend and I knew he’d be up late on his computer). Family 10 mins away by car if needed. He was much happier.

I was left for a full week at this age.