Truckboy

Remind me, how old do you have to be to hold a licence?

16, in states out West anyway. IIRC it's 17 or 18 in some places back East. Driver's licenses are a state-by-state thing--the Federal government isn't involved.

Yep, Steve knows what he's talking about. As always!

And one of those American rituals is having to replace your driver's license _and_ your vehicle registration when moving to another state! As I tell my foreign friends, it's surprising the degree to which this country is still 50 little countries stitched together.

Lol! So true on all counts! And, you have to learn new driving laws. Once, I was asked what color the fire hydrants are in the US. I said they are red, yellow, green, white, blue, orange...there is no standard national color.

16 is quite young to drive! Here in the big towns quite a few young people don't get a driving license any longer because you don't need a car, they use bycicles or public transport. Quite different in your neck of the woods, I guess:-)

Heh. Yeah, it's pretty traditional here, particularly out where we live where public transportation basically doesn't exist (unless Uber counts ;) There is bus service for the public schools, even thru high school (~age 18), but lots of kids would prefer to drive to school once they've got a license! It's even practical if they're involved in after-school activities (band, sports, etc.) because you don't need to arrange alternative transportation! Our son drove himself to school all thru 12th grade (age 17-18) because he was also taking a class at a technical institute in Reno itself. So he got lots of driving experience that year, about a 35 mile round trip daily--we figured we were happy we didn't know the sort of driving situations he got into! ;)

It's an unrelenting car culture and has been since Henry Ford. It's one reason for the poor transit systems - especially in the west! Kids want to drive, early and often, and parents (dads, especially) encourage it. Another factor is the sheer size of the landscape. If someone has 3 children, driving them around will be a big job until they learn to drive. That's where the "everybody has to be independent" thing comes in, too.

However, kids in the big metropolitan centers of the northeast or midwest have plenty of transportation options. Increasingly, bikes are used. I've known people from New York city who have never learned to drive and they are real ducks out of water when they move to California - lol! In the rural and western regions, people think you're an idiot if you don't know how to drive. Farm kids drive very early, maybe 10 years old (tractors, trucks, etc), way before it's legal, but no one cares.

Klamath Falls has public bus service, but not on weekends! Lol! It cracked me up when I discovered that! The transit company recently extended hours a little bit to include something like the daring hour of 7:30 p.m., but only on the community college and Oregon Tech runs.

Yes, it's similar in German rural areas - there cars are essential and people get angry when politics try to restrict their "freedom" driving into polluted city centres;-)
I myself don't drive and have never missed a car where I live but I'd certaunly be a fish out of water in a very rural area.

Yeah, I remember that you worry about your kids learning to drive--but you also look forward to it so you don't have to ferry them everywhere!

Also, when my son was little I used to take him on desert trips where we'd often camp out--altho he preferred a motel, as he does to this day. Anyway, when he was about 14 I started teaching him to drive on the back roads, as much so that he could get us out if I became incapacitated. When he started "officially" learning he had experience on 4WD tracks but not on pavement!

For so many of us it was the sign of independence, of breaking free of the family, of becoming 'someone'. As a culture in an over-heated environment we can't continue to be so car-based, particularly in urban areas, but such readily-available markers of adulthood (including the military draft) are disappearing. How's a kid going to test independence these days?

Well, cars, in the sense of individual transportation, are not going away, despite the fantasies of some urban theorists, but there's nothing that says that automobiles _have_ to be powered with IC engines! You'll also see automatic control (i.e., self-driving) become mandatory in congested areas, probably in conjuction with GPS monitoring.

Ohhh, I remember SO well, that feeling of being Queen of the World when I got my license, wind in the hair, "see ya, stupid family!" and all of that. The beginning of teen invincibility - for better and often worse. A week later, I got my first ticket. Rolling stop at a stop sign. Lol!

He looks to young to drive .... well as I get older people seem so much younger.... He must be chuffed I was when I passed !!!