I need some support from all you guys at about 3:00 Eastern today. I'm taking my daughter to get her driver's license. We had her Sweet 16 party last night. I thought I was ready for her to be driving, but today I'm not sure. She scares the crap out of me on the roads.

 

I have always been a proponent of 16 year olds getting their license, but it is truly frightening...You might think about banning the cell phone unless it is an absolute emergency and limiting the number of passengers she carries. We did these things and prayed a lot we also had them drive with us whenever possible and we have been lucky. I even took my boys and had them drive in Chicago traffic fairly early in their driving "careers" so thay could handle the pressure there and that seemed to help. Since I had boys I set an early curfew foer the cars too, as a way to limit their playtime driving. Good luck

 

Three years into it, our daughter turned 19 on the 21st. Breathe DEEP! You'll be OK, but more important she will be OK. You taught her to drive, you trust her, now you have to have faith in that. That is not say there won't be some excitement along the way! Deep and slow, just keep breathing deep and slow!

 

you arent going to let her take the hhr first night out are u?

 

I always thought I had nerves of steel, but when my 2 daughters were of age to drive, I ran the other way. They just plain scared me. On the other hand, I worked extensively with my son. The kicker with him was this........I was one week out of the hospital following my first heart attack. The state trooper conducting the road test saw my IAFF decal on my car and asked if I was a firefighter. I told him yes, where, what, etc. He told me I didn't look good so I explained my circumstances. He was a bit surprised, but off we went. AT one point we were to turn onto a main thoroughfare. My sone sort of rolled through the stop sign, looked, and damned near misjudged how close a vehilce coming down the street was to us. I shuddered! At the end of the exam, the trooper said to my sign "seeing how your dad is a firefighter, I'll give you your license. Don't drive until your dad can practice with you a bit more". I almost crapped my pants! I though for sure he was doomed after the stop sign. After I felt better, we worked on his skills. Unfortunately, all 3 of my kids have had an accident with the first cars. My son is now 22, drives a new Dodge Ram quad 4X4 with a hemi. He is much more careful. Life lessons I guess, nobody has been hurt.

As for my girls.......well.....I still don't ride with them. They give me chest pain.

 

I'm from a long line of "old school" drivers.....beginning to teach kids to drive at 12-13 years (not quite legal, but uncles, who were car dealers in PA, had me shuttling cars between lots). This worked very well for me and, ultimately, my daughter...who incidently can handle a CAR better than most men, who THINK they can.

My 16 year old grand daughter is another story. She was not afforded the opportunity of early "lessons". She had the Driver Training classes provided by the school system and "aced " her written test, but the limited amount of actual driving was represented in her driving after obtaining her license. I worked with here for a long time and SOME skills were enhanced, but questionable.

But, as her experience increased, so did her abilities and confidence. And, frankly, I'm really proud of her (with only 9 months of solo experience).

So, what I'm trying to suggest is to monitor, instruct, instruct with experience, and finally experience wiith "soft" criticisms.

Remember, you are a parent first....a friend second (regardless what Ms. Clinton tells you in her book).



Good luck

 

James,
You shouldn't ask for support now, when you get your new insurance bill is when you'll need that support.

BTW, did you get your splash guards on yet?

Al

 

I'm going to try to answer all the replies with one post. First to scaleguy, we're lucky here in Tennessee because the law is that you can only have one passenger (unless immediate family), can't drive from 11 PM to 6 AM, and can't talk on the cellphone all for the first year. So we didn't have to lay down those rules, they were already there. No, she can't take the HHR because I found her a 96 Monte Carlo with 60K miles for $4,500. It's cherry for now. The insurance is around $600 per year (we think) just for her. By the way, Dark Age, I got the splash guards on tonight. My friend manages a used car lot, so we used their lift after he got off tonight. It took about 40 minutes for all 4. With all the proper tools and a lift, it's easy. We didn't even have to take the wheels off. I went with a stock installation, no double sided tape like we discussed, as the area in contact with the paint is really too small to use the tape. It's only about 1/16 wide at the edges.

 

Sounds like a nice first car for your daughter, hopefully she'll take care of it.

Glad to hear you got the splash guards installed o.k.

Al

 

Yeah, she's a good kid. Smart, too. She made a 21 on the ACT as a 7th grader (she didn't know Trig) and now as a Junior she's into math I've never heard of (and I'm an accountant). I'm anxious to see what she can do on the ACT now. She'll take care of the Monte Carlo. I originally had a beat up 91 Mercury Tracer for her to drive ($800), then got to remembering how I felt when I drove my $40 63 Fairlane to school. So I determined she didn't have to do that, so I bought the Monte. My son's 14 almost, but he wants the HHR. That might be a tougher sell for me.