Young adults and learning to drive

[loveawineloveacrisp]

AIBU to think that young adults should learn to drive as soon as they can, if they have the means?

Eldest DSS is 25 and due to visit from his home town for Xmas. He'll be expecting his dad to taxi him around all Christmas like he's still 12 years old as he simply can't be arsed learning to drive. He earns well and has the means to learn, run a car etc.

Youngest is 19 and not showing any interest in driving either, is still ferried back and forth between mum's house and dad's house like a small child. Drives me nuts. When will it end? When they're 30? 40?

That is amazing. Who with? We are in London so that might make a difference.

London will make a bloody big difference. Even compared to Essex where I am. Our town is cheaper than the neighbouring town also. It's admiral he's with

And it's an old car without fancy guzmos

I'm not at all anti-driving. I just don't see why people should be made to do it if they don't want to, as long as they don't assume they'll be able to have lifts any time they want.

Depends on circumstances. I learned to drive when was 17 and had my test a few weeks later. My husband was 25. He is anxious anyway but he got into a car at 17 and said he didn’t feel ready yet for the responsibility of driving so waited until he did.

Choosing not to learn to drive is fine.
Choosing not to learn to drive, but then expecting people who can drive to ferry you about is not.

I think it's actually quite tough . Two of mine have failed tests after hundreds of pounds of lessons - over £2000 in one year for one of them. Getting test ready is one thing, takes ages unless you take them out and that's hard. Tests are hard to book and easy to fail. Affordability and access etc .

This is the crux of it

DS has a grant which funds his lessons due to a disability. This has helped him get on with lessons as there's no cost barrier.

Depends where you live surely

my husband is only learning now at 47

before now he always lived right in the city centre of the place we lived and been in London for the last 12 years and we live next to an overground, 5 mins from a tube, the high road is 5mins away with all the shops we’d need

nursery is super close as will the schools

we have access to 8 different bus routes

its never been an issue really except the odd time we’ve rented a car if we’ve been abroad and I just drove then

he did think about starting to learn a few years back - but tbh it was so expensive we couldn’t afford it

even now it’s looking like we will be spending a few thousand on the lessons - and we doubt we will be able to get a car for a long time as can’t afford it. So he won’t even be able to practice so not sure if it’s a stupid idea to even bother tbh 🤣

DS has what's now classed as an "old banger". We are hoping that will help when he needs to go fully comp. Glad your DS has a nice cheap premium to start him off.

My DC was booked in for their theory test the morning of their 17th birthday, and passed.

Insured on our car and we taught them how to drive.

DC passed their test in our car 6 months later at 17 and a half years old.

DC is a late August baby so younger than their friends and we wanted them to pass their test before A levels got started. This is why it was so important we insured them on our car and taught them quickly.

What did you do to help your DC learn to drive at 17 years old?

DH's brother refused to learn to drive because he lived in central London. Then his company had a reshuffle and he had to move to Salford or be made redundant. Well Salford is not much fun on public transport when you have 3 DC under 7. And it is hard to learn to drive when you are working full time with 3 small children. They spent £12K on Ubers in a year before he used his annual leave to do a crash course and bought a car. Driving is a life skill and the younger the better imo. Public transport is an utter joke outside London and you are choosing no camping trips, fly drive holidays, trips to isolated Scottish beaches - why limit yourself?

I mean that’s a bit of an extreme example - he could have just been made redundant and gotten a better job and continued to live in London car free.

The money on the Ubers isn’t that crazy - how much would they have spent in a year on a car/ petrol / tax / insurance / maintenance.

Sorry @loveawineloveacrisp but it’s the way they’ve been bought up , if you want them to drive you need to have paid for them to do this when they were kids . Both of ours drive but even if they didn’t they wouldn’t expect me to find their taxis / meals out etc again it’s how they’ve been raised .

It's expensive, there's already too many cars on the road and has everyone got a drive or garage to.keep the car in.
It needs washing often and vacuuming out.

There's repairs, breakdowns and the worry about the car being stolen or vandalised especially if it's street parking.😝

It's not the driving it's the fact they should be paying for trains taxis and buses to get about.