Drivers ed and "no interest"?

my DS will be 16 in November. He hasn't shown any interest in learning. I've asked him twice and he says no. I'm not going to push him He's a good kid and works hard. Between my DH and I we can take him where he wants to go (older brother is in college out of state).

I didn't say it was a "safety issue".

I said it is an "essential life skill".

And I stand by that.

There is no public transportation here.

Lots of kids seem to be more that way these days. And their parents are not in a hurry for them to get it either. I kind of see that side. "In my day", we couldn't wait to gt DL. My DD was the same way. Had it planned to get all required drivers ed and behind the wheel in and had the first appt at the DMV the am of her 16th birthday. BUT if we didn't live in rural area where her friends can be pretty far away, I don't think she would have been in such a hurry.

Did I mention after the DMV, she drove me home, and then went off to her first job! Too much growing up in one day for this mom!

My youngest son got his learners permit when he turned 15 but didn't get his driver's license until he was 18. He was a passenger when his brother had an accident and it really spooked him. We live in metro Atlanta where traffic is awful and to be honest if he wasn't comfortable driving I was ok with him not. He only developed an interest in driving after his brother left for college.

So if you lived in a place with *no* public transportation whatsoever what would you do?

I just can't see how driving is not an essential life skill in that circumstance.

My girls had no interest (age 16 and 18 when they started). I signed them up anyway and once they started to actually drive, they are a little more interested. They don't ask to drive or anything though. Maybe when they get more hours in and more confidence they will.

My 15 yo son, on the other hand, is beyond ready to learn. But I am not going to have 3 kids having to complete their 50 hours at the same time so he will have to wait a bit longer.

Out here there is no public transportation AND we are a good 30 min drive from town. Driving is most definitely an essential skill here unless I want to be a taxi forever, which I do not.

Which is fine, gale. But the point is, it's not an essential skill for everyone that you "must learn" as myshelly is trying to say. The same as you live so far out, some kids live within walking distance of everything. Others can't afford cars and have very good public transportation.

It really depends on where you live, and isn't a "one size fits all" skill like most agree that swimming is.

To me it was a non answer though.

I said how would you get by without public transportation and you answered with "I used public transportation (a school bus) to get to school". That's not really an answer to me.

I have a nephew who just started his freshman year in college, and he has zero interest in driving, and never even got his permit.

My dd wasn't in a hurry either. That in combination to all of the steps MD now requires vs what was required when I got my driver's license in PA year ago made the process drag on forever. There also wasn't motivation because we practically live next door to her HS. So although she was very heavily involved, transportation was never really an issue. In MD you can't start the process until your 16th b-day, she got her permit 9 mos after her b-day, the summer before her senior year.

Contributing factors to procrastination for many of her friends:
*The 3+ hour wait to take the driver's written test and get learner's permit for kids involved in sports, heavy academics, and activities.
*Extensive documented drive time in all weather and road conditions. Requires driving over multiple seasons and also parents's/kid's free times don't often intersect.
*Driver's ed is required and not offered in school. Sceduling time with a driver's training school because everyone must take it and then the ability to schedule the extensive classes and drive times with the instructor is prohibitive to getting it done quickly.
*Driver's ed costs around $500.
*Some kids have to wait over 6 months to be able to schedule an appointment to take the driving part of the test.

All of this added up to over a year from beginning to end. DD was lucky to get her driving test done quickly, but we had to drive to a MVA over 4 hours away to do it. We had no choice because we felt she needed it before she entered basic training a month after she graduated. Otherwise, going off to regular college may not have been enough incentive for her to get in since freshman and sometimes sophomores weren't allowed cars on campus anyway.

I grew up very rurally. We had a school bus but it made one run, no late bus or activity bus, and no public transportation. The vast majority of us got our driver's licenses and cars when we were 16 and began driving ourselves promptly thereafter. It was absolutely an essential life skill there, and the ones who didn't do it at all were at a serious disadvantage on many levels. I think even if you were not really emotionally/developmentally ready - and there were some of us who were not - you kind of had to figure it out whether you really wanted to or not. That was not necessarily advantageous, though, living very rurally with unlit, winding gravel roads (most of those roads are still gravel 20 years later), deer to contend with, a variety of hazards. Circumstances dictated that young people really needed to learn to drive but it was not necessarily developmentally appropriate. There were young people for whom the demand of driving was too great and carried significant consequences, unfortunately - some kids really aren't prepared for the responsibility yet.

Teens' brains are still developing - they are not little adults - they lack some of the cognitive processes they will have mastered in another five or six years, and they lack the experience to effectively judge stopping distance, proper speed, weather conditions on the road, etc. Some conditions on the road still make me anxious - like a couple weeks ago when I was driving in an unfamiliar town in severe pouring rain - and my teenage years were half my life ago, how much harder would that have been if I was a novice driver? 

Anyway. 

Where I live now, in a large suburb, the majority of students in our high school zone can easily get from here to there without a vehicle. There is a school bus, there is a late bus/activity bus, and there is public transit. I don't know how many students here get their licenses at 16 because my child is still elementary age, but I see a lot of high-school kids getting off the late bus at our stop so I assume they don't have vehicles of their own. Here, you can very easily do all of life's critical functions on foot, bike, or public bus. You may not LIKE it but you can DO it. I do not consider driving a critical life skill for 16-year-olds in my area. Will it make life a lot easier if they can drive themselves to college? Sure. Does it expand their field of possibilities to do it? Of course. Is it crucial? No, not at all. 

Assuming all things are equal, my daughter will be allowed to learn to drive when she is legally and personally ready to do so. That might be the first day she is eligible, that might be a year or two or more later. She will have to weigh the consequences of not driving if she so decides, and she will have to take full responsibility for her conduct behind the wheel if she decides to become a driver. I will help her with either decision to the fullest extent that I'm able. 

I took driver ed classes in high school but they had no car available for the driving portion of it. I went away to college and couldn't have afforded a car. I graduated college and then learned to drive. I got my license at 22 1/2. My oldest got hers at almost 22 and ds is almost 20 and still doesn't have his. He'll get it when he's ready. 

My DD got her license within 2 weeks of turning 16. We share a car but will probably give her my car in December for her use. She can drive DS to high school this year only as she's a senior and he's a freshman. He is very ready to drive but doesn't even turn 14-1/2 until November so he has a year from then just to get his permit. Dh started giving him lessons but I put a stop to that. I can't imagine what would happen if DS got in an accident as an unlicensed, uninsured drive.

In South Dakota, a child can get a school/work license at 14! I can't imagine that being a good idea with the horrible winters they have there.