Teens and driving

[Dietagainmonday]

What does everyone do for their teens. My dd will be 17 in 3 months and has been very keen on driving as soon as possible, in fact has been talking about it for 2 years. She is still at school and has a Saturday job £25 per week. She so sensible, kind, helpful, studies long hours, she really is a good kid!
Did u buy car?
Insurance?
Lessons and tests?
Add to your insurance?
Leave them to do it themselves when they can afford it?

We are a couple of years off, and we are luckily financially sound.

I view being able to drive as an essential life skill (unless perhaps you live in London).

I am at the moment planning to maybe buy a second car for me (that I will be owner, registered keeper, and main driver of) that DD1 can learn to drive in. (My own car is too new and too high powered for me to want her to learn with, but I won't want to part with it.)

I would pay the insurance for the second car and to have her added as a driver.

Our and GP's 17th b-day presents will be cash for driving lessons.

Once a test is passed not so sure, she would need to be able to keep driving to keep skill level up. We may consider signing over car, but probably not, maybe add her to my main car. Given how ridiculously expensive insurance is, we may pay for that, but if she were using car a lot for herself she would need to put fuel in.

I don't think while in education she needs her own car, but I do want her to learn to drive so she has the skill when she needs it.

Can you afford it, DAM? Where does she need to drive to?
The insurance is killer.

We have fleet insurance, else I doubt that the insurance was doable.

we are in the same position with ds1, he will be 17 in July.

I just brought him a car, but only because it was a bargain (£500) and he will now get a reduced amount of lessons for his birthday.

Its currently insured in my name but obviously hes not driving it yet, but wanted it insured incase it gets stolen. He has a part time job and is at college so he will be expected to contribute.

Financially I can afford to insure it for him, but want a gesture of payment and haven't said that I will pay. He has asked for lessons/money towards lessons for his birthday from relatives.

He will be expected to pay for his own petrol, mot, road tax.

If I hadn't have got the car, I would have paid for lessons for his birthday nd then re car he would have had to save for it himself, I would help out with insurance, but again running costs down to him and maybe looked at putting him as named driver so that he could occasionally borrow my car. But that would have been very occasionally.

I think the lessons younger is good and to pass the test is a good thing, doesn't mean that they need instant access to a car once they have passed.

We bought lessons for DD1s 17th birthday. If you can afford it then I think you should. Once they leave home they will have many other priorities for their money.
When she passed her test I added her to my insurance. I then bought myself a new car which I wasn't willing to share . We insured my old car for her but now that she's gone to university it's sitting in our garage waiting for DD2 to pass.

We bought a 3rd car as neither DH or I wanted to share ours! It's in DHs name though and if DS wants to keep it when he goes to Uni, he'll have to buy it off us. He has a p/t job so pays for petrol. We pay the insurance as long as a) he keeps his grades up and b) he gives his siblings rides when we need him to.

We're not in the UK, so the learning process was slightly different but we took him out loads ourselves for practice. I agree it's an important life skill that's so much easier to learn when you're young.

I gave Ds £500 for his GCSE results which he spent on lessons. Luckily passed first time. He sold his drumkit to buy his first car, so all I had to pay for was the insurance (£1600 ish iirc), MOT, servicing etc.

He sold it recently as he's in Uni now so it was sitting outside unused, but I'll probably buy him a decent one for his 21st.

We are in the middle of nowhere so it was always going to happen. Also the insurance 3rd year round was really piddling, about £500 iirc fully comp, so worth biting the insurance bullet early on.

Both mine had lessons for their 17th birthdays. Added both to my insurance and they practiced alongside the lessons. DD1 had bought and insured her own car by the time DD2 was ready to have lessons. So only had to share with one at a time. They didn't use it very often but it was handy for them to be able to drive themselves instead of me playing mums taxi. Worth every penny imo:)

yes have to admit, while I am not relishing the thought of ds1 on the road, I am looking forward to one less to ferry to rugby/footballs/mates houses/town etc.

Thing is then they are no longer a captive audience so you miss out on that 20 minutes of conversation per day

Mine learn in school during the semester before they turn 16. DD3 is a week away from her driving test so my evenings are spent practicing various manouvers and allowing her to drive in rush hour traffic.

I never bought anyone a car, and if they wanted to be included in the current insurance they had to pay for their own portion themselves. Where we live, you are automatically included in the insurance as long as you have your learning permit and up to the time you get your official driving licence. Once you have that document, you need to be named on the insurance.

I think teenagers are far more gung ho about mastering driving than older learners are. In a culture where it's the done thing they put their hearts and souls into it. It was the only class DS ever did where he got an A all through high school . I don't think you ever regret learning - imo it's an essential life skill.

We've paid for lessons, with the help of GPs and assisted buying a car and insurance.
We live in a rural area & I feel that it was mine & DH choice to live here rather than a town with public transport, so we've got some responsibility to get them independent.
Plus I'm sick of being a taxi service.

How much does annual insurance cost to add for your own car, where u are, Mathanxiety?

Did you have to pay for drivers ed in your kids' high school?

Free Driver's ed was gone by the time I was 15 in 1982. So my mother found the cheapest instructor in the city who drove a tank-size cadilac, automatic. Fine except we only had stick-shift at home & manual transmission is what I had to take my test in, too. The instructor's offices were filthy & he used to spout racist comments, too, but got me thru my test. 2 weeks after I turned 16 iirc. My whole family was amazed that i passed the first time.

It will be both DDs 17th birthday and Christmas presents as there is no way you can have a job here until you can drive.

Such is, was and ever shall be the lot of rural parents.

Both mine are now at Uni with no need for a car.

DD is now 21. We got her lessons for 17th birthday and after a bit of shopping round insured her as additional driver on my then nine yo Citroen Xantia diesel. Cost about 2.5 times what it previously did for just DP and I.

She did loads of practice in my car, both as trips out for instruction and with her driving on family outings. Included her doing pretty well all the off motorway stuff during a family holiday to the Western Isles. Passed test first time and subsequently has loan use of the Xantia including regularly acting as station chauffeur for my London commute.

DS pretty similar except due premium oddities it was cheaper to insure him on DP's 2005 Berlingo. Also passed test first time and did his stints on station trip with loan use as quid pro quo.

After my Xantia was scrapped insuring even just DD on new 115PS Berlingo was silly money but when home they share use of older one with me.

Much cheaper than messing about buying/insuring cars they'd have had to get rid of for Uni and either can be designated driver for family outings so DP and I can have a drink.

Your mileage of course may vary!!!

We had to pay extra for annual school district registration fees for sophomore year (about $200 instead of $50ish for the other years). Students who qualified for free or reduced price lunch had the registration fees waived including the increased sophomore year fee.

Insurance depends on zip code to some extent, plus factors like whether the car is parked in a garage or used to drive to work. They also take into account students' gpa. For my DDs, iirc individual insurance would have cost $150 more each per year on top of my own personal policy, but more for DS. (DS is actually a far safer and better driver than either DD1 or DD2 but statistically teenage boys are more of a risk unfortunately.)

I also passed in a manual -- failed the first time but went back the next day to a different DMV facility in a different redneck suburb of KC MO and passed.

We paid for DD's lessons when she turned 17. It wasnt cheap but money can be saved by block booking lessons.

We then gave DD a small cheap (£700) car for her 18th birthday. This will be sold/scrapped when she goes to university in September. Insurance was 1600 for the first 10 months (Admiral with box in the car) then 800 for the second 10 months (DD is an excellent driver it seems!)

As we could afford it we felt that this was a good thing to get DD on her way. We gave her the car so that she had a year of driving experience before stopping for a while when she went to university.

I don't think you could get any teenager in the UK added to adult car insurance for as cheap as £100 (US $150). More like £1500 per year minimum; although I don't think they discriminate here on gender any more (was declared illegal). £1500 probably at 17-18yo, not 15-16yo.

I suspect we will help DC (in UK) get licenses at about age 20-21. Not before.

Even though I grew up in a car-loving and very car-dependent culture, my mother had to twist all our arms to persuade us to learn to drive; my brothers were maybe lazy & I was frightened of the responsibility.

why has everyone left their cars at home to go to uni? Ds1 will hopefully go to uni a year in September and is planning on taking his car with him. He'll need it to get to work, come home for visits, food shopping etc?

Wouldn't it be lovely I insurance was only £150 for teens. 52 reg fiesta is currently coming up at £1400 for 17yr old ds on his own insurance. I haven't added him as a learner to mine yet as hes not 17 until july.

I took my car to uni from the second year as they put the bus passes up and my parents have no trains in winter on Sundays, so DDad had to come and get me if I went home for the week end.

In later years I did one weekend in my flat, one in now DHs in a different city and one at home and chunks of holidays at DH's much more distant parents.

I'm jolly glad petrol was cheeper!

Ds left his car here as he's in a city centre and would be paying £8 a day to park it. Also he's walking distance to all the clubs, shops etc and right next to the main train station and 15 mins from the airport so simply doesn't need it.

Supermarket is 2 mins walk from his flat.

I sold it for him a couple of months ago as it was silly to keep paying for insurance, road tax, MOT etc when it was just sitting unused.

Since he left in Sept he's spent a total of 21 days at our house (he doesn't call it home any more, home is his new city).

I'm not sure if we will be able to afford to get/insure a car for our dc but we have put aside the money for them to have lessons and hopefully pass their driving tests (if there is a gap between passing and actually driving then we'd suggest and pay for a few refresher lessons).

In an urban area there isn't necessarily the need to actually have a car right from the age of 17 but we wouldn't want the lack of a licence to restrict the dc's access to jobs so we see the driving test as an important exam to pass.

Ds is 17. We paid for him to have lessons and take his test.

The problem we have now is insurance. Some insurance won't quote for my car which is pretty new but unremarkable. Insurance companies want between £5,000-£10,00+ for s small car in his name.

Heirs leaving itnowuntol he is 18 and will look again.

In the meantime he is allowed to drive the works cars and vans up and down the country!!
Bizarre!

By the way we live in area known for notorious for high car insurance!!

I paid for lessons when DS1 was 17 and paid for his test.
I insured him on my car so he could get extra practise in. After he passed I insured him as additional driver on my car with Direct Line - about £800.
He'll be off to uni in September so no point having his own car. WheresRyder Most unis don't allow them to take a car, certainly the ones DS has applied to. I guess if they live off site that may be different.