2nd year uni (starting 2018)

[HSMMaCM]

The old thread seems to have filled up!

[user546425732]

She's going to be driving to see her boyfriend (about an hour away with no decent train service) plus driving herself backwards and forwards to and from home as she comes home quite often, that and getting herself to uni because I can't take the time off when she needs to get there due to shift work.

She's saved up enough money to pay for the car and the insurance.

[Ariela]

Daughter admittedly lives at home, but the car was invaluable to get to/from horse/work/Uni/volunteering as public transport significantly lacking at the times she needed to travel. Luckily the uni offer a parking pass in special circumstances eg sporting (she competes) or work (work is rural) & lack of public transport. This year her school friend is living back home, and who happens to live near the horse , so they are aiming to be sharing transport where they can.

[BackforGood]

My dd saved up and bought herself her first car (and insurance - that's the expensive bit) in the 6th form against my advice and took herself off to university in it for her first year.
She is lucky enough that her halls had plenty of parking, so not a problem there, and, although she didn't need it to get to lectures / library / nights out / town centre, she has used it a lot for her social life, sporting life, and exploring the local area.
If they go somewhere in it, then her friends tend to then pay her entrance fee or whatever (eg, they have to go 20 mins drive to get to a cinema where they are - she never pays to watch a film).

How 'necessary' it is, or whether it is worth it financially or not is going to depend on what university you are at, how much you can walk, what public transport is like around the university but also to get home (or to boy friend's / girlfriend's / mates' universities).
She has made a Whatsapp group of friends who live in the same City or near us, and, when she wants to come home, she lets them know and others then sometimes come with her and give her a tenner for petrol, so that saves everyone money.
It's like in life - cars are expensive to run, but darned useful to have. As she is funding hers, then it is up to her what she spends her money on.

[BestIsWest]

DS has absolutely no interest in learning to drive. We’ve persuaded him that it’s a very useful life skill to have even if he doesn’t own a car and he was supposed to be doing a crash course at the end of the summer. He hasn’t even arranged the theory test. Bit cross with him about it.
No use nagging I suppose.

[Horsemad]

Mine neither Best. I'm getting fed up of ferrying him around now, so we have discussed a crash course before he returns to uni.
It now transpires he's 'mislaid' his provisional licence, so he'll need to arrange a replacement & his theory test...

[BestIsWest]

Hmm, Horsemad sounds like he’s employing similar delaying tactics to my DS.

[Horsemad]

Yup.

[bigTillyMint]

My DD isnt learning to drive because she has absolutely no need at home or at uni - both cities have decent public transport or we can walk. So no point until she actually needs to drive.

[BestIsWest]

DS doesn’t at Uni - city centre and 200 metres from the train station. We are a bit out in the sticks here though so it makes it difficult for him to get a holiday job.
It will also be very useful for the line of work he wants to pursue.

[BackforGood]

It is a big plus when applying for jobs though.
If a job needs you to drive, then you miss out if you wait until "you need it" to start thinking about learning.

[user546425732]

at crash course for learning to drive.
Dd has seen a cracking little car, a green Hyundai, so has test driven it (so did I) and got fully comp insurance for £700, it's only had one owner and hardly any mileage despite being old.

[Mamia15]

My DC learned to drive even though they don't use a car at uni - being able to drive has meant they're able to work in the holidays and when they start applying for internships and graduate jobs, they have more choice.

[Xenia]

My twins drove themselves to and from school actually every day since they passed their tests at 17 and as they were almost the oldest in the class they passed fairly early on. However where we live you can (just about unless you are a lazy so and so) walk to the tube so it is certainly not essential here (although their school would not have been an easy tube journey v. 20 mins in car).

Cyclists by the way wanting jobs - my son did another shift for Uber Eats on his bike last night which is very useful as you can just do whatever odd hours you like ( subject to it being a time when people order hot food).

[MorvahRising]

I agree, DS passed (not first time . . . or even second . . . ) before he went to university. He wasn’t particularly bothered about learning but we insisted he did because once he was away it was going to be difficult for us to take him out to get enough practice. He is now really glad he did, as he is currently driving to his internship which would be a nightmare to get to without a car.

He doesn’t have his car at university though. They’re not allowed while you’re in hall and even if they were there’s nowhere to park. Also there’s a free bus pass with the hall fees so it would be a waste of money.

One of his friends has to have a car at another university though - second year - as he is in the golf team and transporting his clubs all over the country without one would be really difficult.

[Needmoresleep]

A car was not something we expected to have to pay for, but after a year of DD having to get up at 6.30 in order to get to a rural placement by 9.00am we have changed our minds. She also has to return a month early to do HCA shifts including nights, and though this time the hopital she has been allocated is accessible, she wont be so lucky next.

Pity as walking/cycling are cheaper and healthier. She intends to use the car only for placements. I suspect she does not want to feel obliged to be a taxi service for her friends. We shall see.

She needs to pass her test first. We have never bought a car so I have been climbing a steep learning curve. Poor DD may get the car I want.

She heard yesterday that she had formally passed her first year. It was tough. The second year WILL be better, and her flat is lovely. Thank you for the support on here. Can I wish everyone a great second year.

[BestIsWest]

DD passed her test before uni too and then didn’t really drive for 3 years. However her first job after graduating involved getting the 6:50 train from a station 3 miles away (and she doesn’t cycle after a bad accident when she was 10) so it was a godsend then. Eventually she moved into a flat nearer the city.

[bigTillyMint]

Congrats to your DD NMS!
I think we will pay for DD to have lessons (maybe crash course) when she has finished with education, but we will need to buy a small manual car as ours is an automatic tank! Which actually barely gets used. Barely any of her friends at home or at uni have had any lessons and none have a car, so I don't think we are being too mean

[Needmoresleep]

BTM, we share a Londoner mindset. DS shows no interest in learning even though in three weeks he heads off to the US to study. DD is learning in her University town as I felt it would be safer/more useful. DH learnt in Central London and barely got out of second gear. Just before his test his instructor told him that if the examiner took him on a dual carriageway he would need to drive at 50. Luckily that did not happen, as DH had only ever done half that speed. Equally I am sure I passed my test because it was at 4.00pm on a Friday and the car barely moved for traffic.

In contrast my mother was very impressed that an 18 month old DD could read bus numbers. She could not, but could recognise their different shapes and so knew their name/number.

DD will almost certainly need a car for her third year, so we might as well sort it now. But it does conflict with my desire to see good public transport and no private cars. London air quality at the moment is awful. I would prefer for us not to be part of the problem.

(I cleaned some windows at DDs flat, mainly because my landlord instincts kicked in. And was amazed to discover they were dirtier on the inside rather than the outside. In London windows are always much dirtier on the outside. To the extent that you would be foolish to market a property without cleaning windows first, it makes such a difference. Clean-ish air. A revelation.)

[ErrolTheDragon]

Is anyone else twitching slightly at all these 'crash courses'?

[LittleSpace]

If your dc pass their test at 17 and then take three years away from driving a good way of getting back to driving is the Pass Plus course.

[BestIsWest]

:) yes, I did struggle to think of a better term than ‘crash course’ - erm ‘intensive driving course’ maybe?

[Horsemad]

Hmmm, intensive driving course is probably a better description! 😁

On a plus note, to my utter amazement, DS has had his halls deposit refunded - I seriously thought he wouldn't, so am very surprised at that.

[BestIsWest]

DS had an email yesterday saying his (aka mine) will be refunded at some point too.

[BehindTheBlueDoor]

DS does drive and housemates are trying to persuade him to take his car next year. He would need to pay for parking at uni though and he knows he'd end up as a taxi so he's not taking it. It's coming in handy for working over the summer though.
Glad to hear deposits are being refunded. I'm hoping to get something although I know it won't be the full amount.

[Xenia]

I think it's pretty relaxed as to whether you need to drive or not. Our parents were keen we passed at 17 before university which I did and I wanted all 5 childern to do so - think parent making them do driving theory test on 17th birthday kind of parental nudging..... but this was partly because I was driving them to school and keen not to have to bother so partly in my self interest and we have two cars including one I and their older brother then drove so it was not as if we had to buy a second one specifically.

We thought it would be hard to have the car near halls in Bristol but they easiliy found after term 1 free parking near by and used it quite a bit at the least to get to the supermarket and then back home and on trips. Son last week drove to Birmingham to stay with friends, then back to Farnborough on the way to Brighton where they camped and then back here and they are very good at sharing it and working out who needs it when. They could easily manage without a car and we mustn't give a warped view of cars and students - most don't have a car and don't need one and usually there is no where to put it at university.

(Mine had a lesson a week from age 17 and both passed within about 6 months and very helpfully their big brother who collected them from school every day by car once they got a bit of experience had one drive all the way home every day for practice with him in the car so that was a good bit of regular practice. He's very calm so was a great person to do a lot of the driving practice with them).

The Brighton one is back this week and his twin is now abroad. Term seems a long way away.