I need a reality check ...

He took Driver Ed (it's required) but we have not found any suitable way to have somebody else work with him until he is a bit more comfortable. Options in rural areas are sometimes limited.

I tried to find a place that has a driving simulator so he could get more practice in a realistic but non-dangerous setting but the closest one is over 100 miles away. I suspect it's also pretty expensive.

At least the Drivers Ed teacher got him through the hardest part. I wonder if those guys get hazardous duty pay?

You have it made. You should try teaching him to drive around where I live between Baltimore and Washington DC. The real test is taking them on either beltway, during rush hour.

I'm not quite sure how my parents survived with sanity more-or-less intact after all those near death experiences in traffic.

I don't think I could cope with teaching an ADD child how to drive in an urban area.

rhubarb patch. My dad was not really gung ho on me having a car, so he drove me to the train station each morning where I caught the train into Balluhmer and took the bus to the University. Then I moved away, and that was it for hairy driving until I got to Toronto which is dense, and fraught with less than intelligent drivers and then England having had no sleep for 30+ hours and picked up the car at Heathrow. That was a trip and a half. I drove about an hour and a half to what must have once been a really nice hotel, at least the front was Tudor, but the additions at the back were less delightful, in I think, Critchlow in East Sussex. I ended up falling asleep on the floor while my wife and son went for dinner and a walk with the bunnies (there were dozens of them.) After the second week, my shoulders stopped aching and I got better at it, and eventually learned to love it. When we came back here and I had to sit at a Traffic Light while no traffic was going through the intersection I went, "Where are the damn' roundabouts when you need them."

Rob

A lot of guys in my generation earned to drive on farms. Some were pretty good at an astonishing young age. Sure, learning to handle a heavy piece of machinery was necessary as they also drove tractors. But learning to handle a vehicle on unpaved, rough country roads was a valuable lesson.

Perhaps you know of a farmer in your area that would permit you to continue your son's motoring experience on his property (away from valuable animals and crops, of course) )

W helps us was requiring ors had one year's insurance in the bank before unaccompanied driving. They saved earnings from their summer jobs at 16 and 17. (Summer earning s between the junior and senior year went into savings for college.) Maybe having to pay for part of the driving privilege gave them a sense of responsibility.

Angeline

When I first entered HS, there was no student parking lot. Any who needed to drive required justification. This would mean that there was no alternate transportation or that they needed to leave school and go directly to their job. An exception was made for some farm kids. They could come by tractor and leave it on a dirt lot. The minimum age to have a tractor on public roads was either 12 or fourteen (I forget exactly) but was 16 to drive and automobile. There were always more student vehicles made by John Deere than Ford or Chevy.

i thought you needed a "regular" license to get an international?

,.

Seems Greece, or at least Crete had different setup, or it was issued by mistake. Laws were made to be broken there. For instance you supposedly needed a license to rent motorbikes, but in reality few places cared to even check.

In North Carolina, all drivers under age 18 are required to pass driver's education and hold a learner's permit for a minimum of 1 year:
http://www.ncdot.gov/dmv/driver_services/graduatedlicensing/requirements.html

My son is unenthusiastic about driving, partly because he KNOWS that we will make him run errands that will cut into the time he has to do 'stuff'. He also has a LOT to learn. He apparently inherited my naturally excellent (not!) hand/eye coordination, resulting in some difficulties keeping the car centered in the lane, judging how strongly to brake, et cetera. But I learned. He will, too.

It's pretty clear that middle age adults are far safer than teenagers, and I think that it is more than just the desire that a lot of teenagers have to drive too fast.

My reflexes are slower than my son's, and my vision is a bit worse than his, but I have the experience to anticipate situations rather than reacting to them. That's something I learned on my own. I don't think you can teach all of that and it certainly takes time to acquire.

Teenagers sometimes seem to think that rapid reaction time will protect them from surprises, just as it helps in the twitch games they play on video game consoles, but the best drivers don't do much twitching.

and have more faith in their abilities than is justified. Seasoned drivers have probably had enough mishaps to know better.

saying that teens never really believe something can happen to them.

That may be a bit inane, but there is a certain feeling of invincibility for youth. Even from the distance I am now, I can remember things my crowd done that I'm sure none of would have done after about 25.

And teens, even 20's, do often patronize older folks over reaction time and believe they can do it better.

Roger

Certain things have to come first. Being able to keep the car centered in the lane at moderate speed is somewhat important before trying anything very fancy. Part of the problem is that he really does not have a burning desire to drive.

We did spend a couple of hours on the road today. He's not ready for day-to-day driving to school in traffic but he is improving.

Get him a good size clunker. Something you feel safer about him being in during a wreck. One daughter got a Dakota which she still drives, the other drove a '98 Lumina. The truck was in the shop twice for body repair and I made the other with her boyfriend helping replace the hood, grill, front light, bend the fender back, after failing to believe me when I told her she was tailgating. She got to drive that two tone paint job (car green, hood white) around until I felt she could drive something better looking. Don't waste a lot of money on him for a first car, just get something that he can drive for a couple years to prove he's able without wrecking it. Medium size car at least that's over 50K miles, or even over 75K to save more money up front. It also will save on the car insurance cost.

My wife is driving an old Camry with about 100,000 miles on it. That will probably be his first car. We've already started discussing what she will get to drive when the time comes.