New car for birthdays ?

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My Dd is turning 17 and her two best friends have both been bought cars for their birthdays . I didn't even know that was a thing for a 17 year old .

It isn't 'a thing'.

However if a family can afford it and a cheap second hand run around is useful for learning to drive, then why not.

I was bought a second hand car when I was 17, back in the 80’s.

It’s a thing, certainly didn’t happen in our household though! DD is 20, passed her driving test last year and shares a car with me. I purposefully (and reluctantly) downgraded to a smaller car to allow this to happen. I, nor DD could afford to buy, run and most importantly insure a car of her own whilst she’s still studying and not earning a full time wage.

OP, your title says ‘new’, but do you just mean ‘bought a car’?

It’s unfortunately a ‘thing’ for 17 year olds at my DC school to get a car for their birthday, but not a brand new one. Many but not most Y12 in my DC school drive school by the summer.

A) it's not a thing
B) have you seen the price of insurance for that age group

Some families can afford to and want to do it and some families can't afford to or don't want to do it. You do you and stop worrying about what other people are doing.

It was a thing at my DS's sixth form. Lots were bought quite nice cars and then there was lots of discussion about how to get insurance on the parent WhatsApp group .

On his 16th DS was given the money my mum had saved for him since he was born and we gave him what we had saved for him so that he could put it altogether and buy a car ready for learning to drive.

It isn't a thing! Being bought driving lessons maybe...

When DD is old enough to drive we will insure her on one of our cars so she can practice then hopefully drive if she passes her test.
No plans to buy her a car

It is a thing round here- not universal but I'd say about 75% of my son's friends have one. We're semi rural with very poor public transport, so to be able to get to part time jobs / gym / sports training etc without parental taxi-ing a car is pretty much needed. (They also drive to school but that's just lazinesss / showing off!) They're not brand new cars though- mostly 8-14 years old? The insurance is often more than the car price for the first year. Quite a few have actually had to get one to learn as their parents only have automatic cars now as well.

I don't think it's a thing but very much depends on individual circumstances. We bought my son a car when he was 17 for a number of reasons. It saved us a lot of running him around as he was undertaking a lot of work experience and the public transport round here is dire. He was heading off to uni the following year and would be based on a rural campus 350 miles away from home so we wanted him to have a reliable vehicle especially as there was a chance of not getting into halls in first year and definitely not from second year onwards. After he initially moved down he did all his journeys home under his own steam which saved us taking two days off work taking/collecting him. That said, none of his friends got cars as most were heading to unis in towns or cities where public transport was easier.