Ask Lemmy

20 - I could have gotten it sooner but driving is scary.

16 - parents

I taught a friend how to drive and he was in his mid 20's when I taught him.

I was 27. Had an instructor and a friend who let me drive him around a bunch for practice. My mum got hers at 30. Just get it when you can afford it or you want/need it. There's no rush.

I was 20 and learned from an instructor. To be fair, I'm from the Netherlands and cars don't play such a big role here. I had a moped from when i was 17, so i was motorized. Although I bicycled for most of my trips under 10 kilometer (five miles).

I got my licence 2 years ago at 35! I initially tried at 16 but my mother was just horrible to drive with and scared me off learning for a long time. When I actually got it I did lessons with an instructor for a long time and that was much better for building my confidence.

License at 16, drove for the first time at 11 (on private property).

21, both my grandmother, and an instructor.

Before then I feasibly had no way to drive, so it was just an extra cost for no benefit. Family didn't have a car at all when I was 16, and I didn't get my first car until shortly before I got my license. I also just hate driving, it wigs my anxiety out. It's still the only car I've ever owned, and I sold it about a year ago.

I work from home, and only even borrow someone's car or get a ride if I can't get to a store on foot, which is one I only go to monthly. I'd still be borrowing a car if I could, though, I'm not sure I could carry 40 pounds of compressed sawdust home on foot. Even with that I likely won't let the license expire, since it's the same cost as an ID anyway.

14, rural communities have different rules I guess. My grandpa at 6 put me behind the wheel of his F350 while pulling a 20’ trailer so he could stand in the trailer and buck hay for all the livestock.

So by the time I got my license I already knew how to control a car and just had to learn the rules of the road.

I don't have a license, because I live in a country with great public transport and never really saw the need to driving, especially in regards to outweighting the damage it does and the danger it poses.

I got my license in 2014 at the age of 19. Driving just didn't interest me before cause only place I went was school and I had a bus to go there which didn't charge me like the school did for people wanting to park there. Once I graduated and needed a job, that's when I started learning to drive. My dad taught me everything by taking me to a local state park and occasionally letting me drive through town or on the interstate.

Was driving my dad home from the bar at 13. School permit at 14 that let me drive to school and work. Drivers license at 16. Drivers education course was offered in our middle school/high school (grades 7-12 in the building).

Road my bike to take the written test. Borrowed a car for the road test.

Didn't study for the written test. I did practice with my temps before the road test.

26. I did a mix of driving with my parents and taking driving classes.

I didn't hurry up to take it because it's not mandatory to drive where I've lived so far, and where I live now it's completely optional. These days I drive very rarely, most commonly when visiting family.

I didn't get mine till 18, even though I went through my schools driving program at 16.

Its nothing to be embarrassed about! I literally didn't know that vehicles would slowly move themselves when in drive until the first time I got behind the wheel in the driving school lol.

I’m 30 and have never learned. I live in a city with adequate public transit.

I'm 40 and I got my licence in 2021. I pid 50$ to make sure(not USA), but never caused an accident with anyone.

13, special license in some US states for kids who live out in the middle of nowhere so they can get to school.

Learned from parents, grandparents, siblings, being around trucks and tractors and motorcycles since I was a toddler. I knew how to drive long before I got a license.

A driving school. Anything else is illegal here.

I was lucky that my parents paid for it. And prices have gone even more through the roof since then.

Never. I've always been poor and it's just not that necessary living in German cities. It would help a lot to be able to rent a car once in a while e.g. for moving apartments, but it seems like a bad idea to get a license and then only drive every couple of months, you'll never build the skills to drive safely. It's moot, though, I couldn't afford the license itself anyway (pretty expensive in Germany).

I got mine when I was 26 after doing on and off lessons and other practice for nearly 10 years. I learned most of it from lessons so neither.

A little bit of each. Technically drivers Ed in high school. I think 16 or 17, whatever I was the summer I took it. However my dad taught me to drive stick, plus driving a car was easier since I already drove tractors and ATVs

Late 30s ~ early 40s. From a school as it is mandatory here with twelve hours of theory and 16 hours of practice classes, followed by two years of probation with zero tolerance ABV and maximum of four demerit points.

I had probably close to 100,000km of experience on the road as a cyclist before that.

I was my mom's oldest kid, she let me drive without a license to learn, as she was not familiar with the rules. Then I took a written test and driving test.

Drivers ed here was in the summers and my friend and I traveled in the summer instead, worked in the school year to make $ so that we could.

My kids, insurance cost is so high here now, they have to wait until they can pay that, I couldn't handle a $1,000 increase in the monthly budget for two teen drivers at that time. The older ones learned after college, my younger ones got the learner permits and learned earlier, one at 15 (she is the only one who likes to drive my stick shift car) and the other at 17 (that one still has only learner permit, can drive well, but usually takes bus or bike to get around town).

I think the reason kids usually learn early here is because the bus system has been systematically underfunded for so long. It's really hard to have a job without a car unless you are lucky and able to arrange everything close to your house. Which isn't gonna happen if your parents live in the exurbs.

I didn’t get mine until 24. Lived in a city with public transport from 18-26.

I was late to riding a bike, too, though. I didn’t pick that up until 18.

18 from a school. Letting 16 year olds drive is insanity.

::: spoiler

:::

Back in the 70s, we had Driving Class in high school. My Dad also took me out to practice. I was about 16 1/2 before I got my license.

OTOH, I had a buddy who wanted to start driving as soon as he turned 16. So he saved his money from his paper route, and the moment he turned 16, he signed up for a private driving school, and he had his license within a couple of weeks after turning 16.

Shhhh, he'd also been secretly borrowing his sister's car for a couple of years.

Driving school in Germany. You had to be at least 18 for a driving license. Paid around 1200 €, 24 years ago.

Got mine at 22, drove twice before taking the test and barely passing

Like 14. Was driving at probably 11 ish? Just cane natural. Played a shit ton of racing games as a kid ha

Don't worry, i know a kid who's 23 and has mever driven. Id recommend you learn though, its a good skill to know.

My wife got hers at 14 1/2. That was the legal age in Maine until the late 1980s.

18. Mom was busy with school when I was 16, so I had to wait. I'm really lucky I had her to teach me at all!

Driver's Ed was a mandatory course in my high school. I got my liscense at 16 a year before they raised the minimum age from 16 to 18 in my state.

Then, like 8 years ago I got a Class A and drove a school bus for about a month, but I didn't like the responsibility of or dealing with all the kids. I'd rather take that and drive trucks all by myself, but trucking companies are bullshit these days. I can legally drive pretty much anything on 4+ wheels as long as I ain't hauling hazardous chemicals (need a special thing/cert for that).

Driver's ed in high school. Either 15 or 16. It was mandatory where I grew up.

In my 30s and never learnt, didn't have the money so just continued to walk or cycle around. Plus I could cycle anywhere I wanted to go anyway, why spend multiple £1000s to cut 5 minutes off the time it takes to get to Tesco?

I grew up in a small town (15k people) so everything was fairly close. Could probably walk across the whole town in 15-20 mins. Now live in a large town (80k) so cycling is more necessary as walking across town can take almost an hour.

Looking at all the stress cars cause other people I am actually happy as I am. Listening to people complain extensively about problems caused by cars and I just nod along. That car stole your space again, tight fitting in that space, your car is too big but apparently that is someone else's fault, everyone else is driving too slow or too dangerously. Driving looks so fucking boring too, looking at the car in front of you as no one is moving and you are surrounded by a sea of concrete. Fuck that, walking or cycling down the old railway surrounded by trees and bushes is so much better.

Never. I live in a city with proper public transport, and I live close enough to the city center that I can easily walk there, or go by bike if I prefer.

I am considering getting my driving license, though. It’s useful for certain jobs, but it’s really expensive.