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>–It’s harder to get a license. From 1996 to 2006, every state enacted graduated driving laws that make it more cumbersome for young people to get licenses. “Yo

>–It’s harder to get a license. From 1996 to 2006, every state enacted graduated driving laws that make it more cumbersome for young people to get licenses. “Young people must now take more behind-the-wheel training (which is more expensive), fulfill additional requirements for permits, and once they are allowed to drive, they are often restricted to driving in the daytime without passengers.” The number of younger Americans without a driver’s license has risen from 21 percent to 26 percent since 2001. This is a great development, considering the recklessness of many young drivers and their relatively high accident rates. I always thought that the roads would be much safer if our legal drinking age and legal driving ages were switched, so that we'd have years of experience dealing with the effects of alcohol before we hit the roads, which would hopefully decrease incidents of driving under the influence of alcohol.

jerf 14y ago
"This is a great development, considering the recklessness of many young drivers and their relatively high accident rates." Is it? Is it working? I just spent five minutes on Google trying to answer that question, but if it's out there it's buried under megabytes of high-Google-juice warnings about teenaged driving. It's only a positive development if it's working. If it isn't working, then it's just an expensive imposition sucking away time and funds that could have been spent on something more productive. But I honestly don't know which is the case. Anyone have a better bead on analysis than I do? I think it's an interesting question. Many of these programs have been going on for long enough that there ought to be an answer out there somewhere.
- mechagodzilla 14y ago
  It looks like it is actually working. I pulled this data from the CDC's website[1] for auto-related fatalities for Americans aged 14-19 (population is total # of teenagers): YEAR DEATHS POPULATION 1999 5,508 24,099,614 2000 5,561 24,272,121 2001 5,513 24,515,654 2002 5,943 24,742,879 2003 5,582 25,019,050 2004 5,564 25,510,811 2005 5,234 25,839,430 2006 5,186 26,116,159 2007 4,986 26,327,320 2008 4,067 26,408,974 2009 3,514 26,378,690 2010 3,159 26,206,325 [1]http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_us.html http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_us.html
  - w1ntermute 14y ago
    Doesn't that need to be normalized by the change in the auto fatality rate for the whole population? I recall that fatalities have dropped off for everyone because of advances in safety technology in cars.
    - nitrogen 14y ago
      Another factor to consider is the continual improvements in roads. For example, when I was younger, the main local freeway narrowed to two lanes with a dangerously sharp turn between me and the nearest major city. Over the past decade+, the freeway has constantly widened, with easier, more sweeping turns, better banking, better surface texture and maintenance, etc.
  - mechagodzilla 14y ago
    It probably should be normalized in many different ways (but if we hypothesize that teenagers are dangerous drivers, taking teenagers off the road would reduce both the teenage fatality rate and the fatality rate of the general population).
  - littlegiantcap 14y ago
    Couldn't these things just be increasingly safe car designs? When I started driving in 2005 side curtain airbags weren't even that common much less all the safety features we have today.
  - SatvikBeri 14y ago
    We can use the data here to normalize against the decrease in auto fatalities across the entire population: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s1103.pdf http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s1103.p... From 2000 to 2009, the # of traffic-related deaths per 100,000 resident population dropped by 26%. Assuming the decay is exponential, that's about 3% per year. In contrast, the # of teen deaths dropped by about 4.5% per year. So we can reasonably conclude that teenage auto-related deaths are falling at a faster rate than overall auto-related deaths.
parasitius 14y ago
I really hope you're not being literal here, this is just offensive through and through with the most cursory of deeper consideration. First, you want to violate the rights of ALL for the sake of whatever less-than-100% who do consume alcohol. Nice. Why don't we also set up a national curfew for all adults, including the few law-abiding ones, since we know a larger portion of crimes happen when it is dark outside? Thank god you aren't in political power. Second. Just because you had the privilege of living in places that may have been survivable without a car, you would subject the 90% of the population living in a situation where meaningful economic activity REQUIRES traversing at least some miles of highway to essentially being shut-in for 5 extra years. That's 5 years with no chance to get a part time job, accumulate work experience, participate in meaningful things... My parents have full time jobs, no they would not even have had the option of giving me a ride if they wanted to had I wanted a job in high school -- nevermind with 3 brothers you are talking about them being chaperones for 5 hours/day. Seriously bugger off. I question the "recklessness" of younger drivers having a correlation with age and not simply with years behind the wheel. I have an Indian co-worker who is almost 30 and he just got move to high-risk insurance, only 2 years exp driving. I'm 30 and have been speeding 15 years now, perfect record without even a parking ticket and I pay $48 insurance on a luxury car.
w1ntermute 14y ago
> I always thought that the roads would be much safer if our legal drinking age and legal driving ages were switched, so that we'd have years of experience dealing with the effects of alcohol before we hit the roads, which would hopefully decrease incidents of driving under the influence of alcohol. Not to mention it's easier to illegally gain access to alcohol than it is to illegally get access to a car, so the probability that the higher driving age law would be flouted would be lower than the rate at which the drinking age law is flouted right now.
nitrogen 14y ago
In response to dead sibling comment by parasitius: I agree with your sentiment but not your tone. There is a lot of anti-suburban, anti-car elitism on HN that is apparently ignorant of the very real need for personal transportation for the vast majority of people, even in many major cities. I would support increased driver training requirements (especially specific training and experience with loss of control on various surfaces), but not without a way of ensuring that the transportation and employment needs of everyone, including youth, are still met. Also, you're probably aware, but your account has been dead for a long time, apparently due to excessively harsh and/or personal negative comments. ------ In response to the general subject of driving, it is my opinion that arbitrary point-to-point human mobility is an essential feature of an ideal society. The inability to move from place to place for employment, vacation, or recreation is, again in my opinion, detrimental to society's mutual respect and wellbeing, and leads to economic and cultural segregation.
- parasitius 14y ago
  I'm not sure what it means for my account to be dead, it seems I can comment as normal? is there any way to make it undead, without making a whole new account? I'd be willing to change my tone, I'm trying to become more positive this year ^_^
- nitrogen 14y ago
  parasitius 18 minutes ago | link [dead] I'm not sure what it means for my account to be dead, it seems I can comment as normal? is there any way to make it undead, without making a whole new account? I'd be willing to change my tone, I'm trying to become more positive this year ^_^ It means that your comments are only visible to people who turn on "showdead" in their profile settings, and it's impossible to respond to you directly. In theory you can try to contact one of the YC or HN site admins, or PG himself, if you want your account restored. I don't know what's involved or what sort of argument you should make. It might be easier to begin your new tone and new resolve with a new account.
  - Zak 14y ago
    Glancing through his comment history, I didn't see a single thing that seemed ban-worthy. It's more a slew of low-quality comments. I have the feeling it was automatic based on number of comments and average score.
zalew 14y ago
> This is a great development, considering the recklessness of many young drivers and their relatively high accident rates A lot of people think that if obtaining a license is harder, the roads will be safer, but it's more an urban wisdom than science. If you take various numbers from around the world, you will notice there is no linear correlation between those two, especially when harder is pay more than you should and sit in class harder, instead of learn how to run a special stage on snow and ice harder. Also, in places where driving is a privilege, drivers tend to feel privileged. The sad truth is just that almost everywhere driving training simply sucks, with the well-known exception of Finland.
- jacalata 14y ago
  I've never heard anything about Finnish driver training - if I were naming a well known exception it would be Germany.
  - zalew 14y ago
    A short presentation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnYGhAXbDsM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnYGhAXbDsM I'm pretty sure there are better films about Finnish courses somewhere. I've heard Austria also cares about training for winter conditions.
  - abenga 14y ago
    There was also an interesting Top Gear segment where Mika Hakkinen gave James May a racing lesson[1]. In it they talked about why Finns seem to do so much better than people from other countries in motor racing. A bit of it was to do with their driver training. [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bmqdnx5R1U http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bmqdnx5R1U
ekianjo 14y ago
"This is a great development, considering the recklessness of many young drivers and their relatively high accident rates." Wow, restricting people's freedom, a great development? Seriously ? Why not restrict access to computers considering the recklessness of "hackers" ? And so on. You are going to build a bleak future if people do not drive as much.
- egypturnash 14y ago
  Or. Imagine that Google's self-driving car efforts come to fruition. That self-driving cars are common, legal, and trusted. Who needs to drive in that future? More: Imagine a successor to Zipcar with a fleet of self-driving cars. Who needs to even own a car? You just log in and summon a car from a nearby lot. It's there in a few minutes, and it takes you where you need to go; when you need to go back home, you summon another one. In the future, owning a car and knowing how to drive it yourself may well be considered eccentric.
  - ekianjo 14y ago
    Even if that becomes the norm (and I doubt this would happen very fast even in the most optimistic scenarii), I seriously doubt self-driving would disappear. The practice would still continue because for some people and for some occasions, driving is a leisure as well. And I am not just talking about speed, but simply being on the road and going somewhere without precise goal. Just like one can go for a walk and wander around. GPS-driven cars are not going to be any good for that kind of usage.
    - adrianN 14y ago
      It's only a matter of time until human drivers will be banned because they cause too many accidents and impede traffic. Robot cars don't need traffic lights for example, because they can just coordinate their speeds such as to not collide. They can drive much closer to each other at high speeds.
      - yardie 14y ago
softbuilder 14y ago
>This is a great development As someone who was socioeconomically prevented from getting a license until his mid-20s, no, it's not. A license in many cases is a ticket out of poverty and a chance to break the cycle of poverty. This is especially true in rural or far-flung suburban areas. That said, the poor behavior of young drivers is a legitimate concern. I'm all for addressing it. Just not a fan of economically disenfranchising people.
- pixl97 14y ago
  A better way to word that is 'the poor behavior of young _____', you could put any number of words in there and have the same effect. Youth are not well known for having great risk assessment abilities. At the same time, they do not have property, wealth, and families to add in to any risk assessment they would make. That said, youth need experience, we are not ready made adults and have to suffer the consequence of our mistakes to learn much of the time. Studies showing that adults make fewer poor decisions should realize a lot of that is because of the previous poor decisions that person had already made.
  - nitrogen 14y ago
    That said, youth need experience, we are not ready made adults and have to suffer the consequence of our mistakes to learn much of the time. I wonder if an argument could be made that the observed phenomenon of extended adolescence is a direct result of the excessive sheltering of youth.
    - eli_gottlieb 14y ago
      I've certainly noticed that every time new laws are passed restricting young people, a few years later a study is published showing that the brain doesn't mature until even older. I'm not sure which way the causality runs, but I've definitely seen the supposed age of brain maturity rise from 18-20 to 22 to, nowadays, 25. Which means that apparently by the time my brain actually matures next year, I'll have been able to vote for 7 years, hold all legal responsibilities for 7 years, drink legally for 7 years (outside the USA) and 4 years (inside the USA), and apply for a driver's license for 9 years. I'll have actually lived outside my parents' home for 7 years, been in a single steady relationship for 6 years, supported myself financially for 3 years and held a driver's license for 2 years. Apparently my legal qualification and actual, demonstrated ability to behave like an adult - all of which is actually pretty normal for someone my age whom I know - either demonstrates unusually precocious brain maturity, or doesn't actually require brain maturity, or these "studies" are showing the effects of society's treatment of young people as barely-functional retards for ever-more-extended periods.
yolonoexception 14y ago
>Young people must now take more behind-the-wheel training (which is more expensive) >fulfil additional requirements for permits This is not true at all. I do not know where he is getting his information. And there are literally no requirements for the permit. All you do is take a vision test and a knowledge multiple choice on the computer which anyone can pass if they know the simple basics. >and once they are allowed to drive, they are often restricted to driving in the daytime without passengers. This only applies to people with a provisional license (if you are under 18), and you can have passengers as long as they are in your family (brothers or sisters), and this only lasts for the first 6 months.
- BruceIV 14y ago
  These requirements do tend to differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Yours is likely rather permissive.
  - saryant 14y ago
    I was able to skirt through a loophole and never take a driver's test. Not at the permit level, not for my license. Talk about permissive. (This was in 2006)
r00fus 14y ago
> This is a great development, considering the recklessness of many young drivers and their relatively high accident rates. This would be a great development indeed, if alternate forms of transportation like buses, light-rail and train services were vastly improved. While I champion the idea of bike commuting (ie live close to where you work), carpooling and vanpooling (have done all three for years sequentially), the goal of getting more dangerous drivers (ie, inexperienced teens) off the road shouldn't disenfranchise them. Non-drivers need transport as well, and most US cities are abhorrent for this compared to other developed countries (HK, France, UK, Brazil, Russia all have amazing transport systems).
wybo 14y ago
> I always thought that the roads would be much safer if our legal drinking age and legal driving ages were switched They are switched in many Western European countries, and imho that works fine. Also because there generally is more public transportation and/or neighbourhood pubs/clubs. (though some countries have raised the drinking age, making them come about at the same time, which is even worse) A 16 drinking age, 18 driving age does create quite a different youth culture though. Less fuss about alcohol (though it differing more with parents permissiveness), more about cars, and early networks and contacts being more local.
- dade_ 14y ago
  In Alberta, I passed the test for a learners permit at 14, which required being with a licenced driver. Practicing driving at 14 on Sunday mornings and quiet highways is an excellent way to learn to drive, and I think to train the brain to react automatically to events that happen too quickly for the conscious mind. My experience anyway. That said, thanks Dad and my friend that donated part of his clutch. :)
Mvandenbergh 14y ago
A better solution to that is graduated licensing where all new drivers start with restrictions on what times they can drive, at what speed, whether they can drive on highways, with friends of the same age in the car, etc.

jerf 14y ago

"This is a great development, considering the recklessness of many young drivers and their relatively high accident rates." Is it? Is it working? I just spent five minutes on Google trying to answer that question, but if it's out there it's buried under megabytes of high-Google-juice warnings about teenaged driving. It's only a positive development if it's working. If it isn't working, then it's just an expensive imposition sucking away time and funds that could have been spent on something more productive. But I honestly don't know which is the case. Anyone have a better bead on analysis than I do? I think it's an interesting question. Many of these programs have been going on for long enough that there ought to be an answer out there somewhere.

mechagodzilla 14y ago
It looks like it is actually working. I pulled this data from the CDC's website[1] for auto-related fatalities for Americans aged 14-19 (population is total # of teenagers): YEAR DEATHS POPULATION 1999 5,508 24,099,614 2000 5,561 24,272,121 2001 5,513 24,515,654 2002 5,943 24,742,879 2003 5,582 25,019,050 2004 5,564 25,510,811 2005 5,234 25,839,430 2006 5,186 26,116,159 2007 4,986 26,327,320 2008 4,067 26,408,974 2009 3,514 26,378,690 2010 3,159 26,206,325 [1]http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_us.html http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_us.html
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  Doesn't that need to be normalized by the change in the auto fatality rate for the whole population? I recall that fatalities have dropped off for everyone because of advances in safety technology in cars.
  - nitrogen 14y ago
    Another factor to consider is the continual improvements in roads. For example, when I was younger, the main local freeway narrowed to two lanes with a dangerously sharp turn between me and the nearest major city. Over the past decade+, the freeway has constantly widened, with easier, more sweeping turns, better banking, better surface texture and maintenance, etc.
- mechagodzilla 14y ago
  It probably should be normalized in many different ways (but if we hypothesize that teenagers are dangerous drivers, taking teenagers off the road would reduce both the teenage fatality rate and the fatality rate of the general population).
- littlegiantcap 14y ago
  Couldn't these things just be increasingly safe car designs? When I started driving in 2005 side curtain airbags weren't even that common much less all the safety features we have today.
- SatvikBeri 14y ago
  We can use the data here to normalize against the decrease in auto fatalities across the entire population: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s1103.pdf http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s1103.p... From 2000 to 2009, the # of traffic-related deaths per 100,000 resident population dropped by 26%. Assuming the decay is exponential, that's about 3% per year. In contrast, the # of teen deaths dropped by about 4.5% per year. So we can reasonably conclude that teenage auto-related deaths are falling at a faster rate than overall auto-related deaths.

parasitius 14y ago

I really hope you're not being literal here, this is just offensive through and through with the most cursory of deeper consideration. First, you want to violate the rights of ALL for the sake of whatever less-than-100% who do consume alcohol. Nice. Why don't we also set up a national curfew for all adults, including the few law-abiding ones, since we know a larger portion of crimes happen when it is dark outside? Thank god you aren't in political power. Second. Just because you had the privilege of living in places that may have been survivable without a car, you would subject the 90% of the population living in a situation where meaningful economic activity REQUIRES traversing at least some miles of highway to essentially being shut-in for 5 extra years. That's 5 years with no chance to get a part time job, accumulate work experience, participate in meaningful things... My parents have full time jobs, no they would not even have had the option of giving me a ride if they wanted to had I wanted a job in high school -- nevermind with 3 brothers you are talking about them being chaperones for 5 hours/day. Seriously bugger off. I question the "recklessness" of younger drivers having a correlation with age and not simply with years behind the wheel. I have an Indian co-worker who is almost 30 and he just got move to high-risk insurance, only 2 years exp driving. I'm 30 and have been speeding 15 years now, perfect record without even a parking ticket and I pay $48 insurance on a luxury car.

w1ntermute 14y ago

> I always thought that the roads would be much safer if our legal drinking age and legal driving ages were switched, so that we'd have years of experience dealing with the effects of alcohol before we hit the roads, which would hopefully decrease incidents of driving under the influence of alcohol. Not to mention it's easier to illegally gain access to alcohol than it is to illegally get access to a car, so the probability that the higher driving age law would be flouted would be lower than the rate at which the drinking age law is flouted right now.

nitrogen 14y ago

In response to dead sibling comment by parasitius: I agree with your sentiment but not your tone. There is a lot of anti-suburban, anti-car elitism on HN that is apparently ignorant of the very real need for personal transportation for the vast majority of people, even in many major cities. I would support increased driver training requirements (especially specific training and experience with loss of control on various surfaces), but not without a way of ensuring that the transportation and employment needs of everyone, including youth, are still met. Also, you're probably aware, but your account has been dead for a long time, apparently due to excessively harsh and/or personal negative comments. ------ In response to the general subject of driving, it is my opinion that arbitrary point-to-point human mobility is an essential feature of an ideal society. The inability to move from place to place for employment, vacation, or recreation is, again in my opinion, detrimental to society's mutual respect and wellbeing, and leads to economic and cultural segregation.

parasitius 14y ago
I'm not sure what it means for my account to be dead, it seems I can comment as normal? is there any way to make it undead, without making a whole new account? I'd be willing to change my tone, I'm trying to become more positive this year ^_^
nitrogen 14y ago
parasitius 18 minutes ago | link [dead] I'm not sure what it means for my account to be dead, it seems I can comment as normal? is there any way to make it undead, without making a whole new account? I'd be willing to change my tone, I'm trying to become more positive this year ^_^ It means that your comments are only visible to people who turn on "showdead" in their profile settings, and it's impossible to respond to you directly. In theory you can try to contact one of the YC or HN site admins, or PG himself, if you want your account restored. I don't know what's involved or what sort of argument you should make. It might be easier to begin your new tone and new resolve with a new account.
- Zak 14y ago
  Glancing through his comment history, I didn't see a single thing that seemed ban-worthy. It's more a slew of low-quality comments. I have the feeling it was automatic based on number of comments and average score.

zalew 14y ago

> This is a great development, considering the recklessness of many young drivers and their relatively high accident rates A lot of people think that if obtaining a license is harder, the roads will be safer, but it's more an urban wisdom than science. If you take various numbers from around the world, you will notice there is no linear correlation between those two, especially when harder is pay more than you should and sit in class harder, instead of learn how to run a special stage on snow and ice harder. Also, in places where driving is a privilege, drivers tend to feel privileged. The sad truth is just that almost everywhere driving training simply sucks, with the well-known exception of Finland.

jacalata 14y ago
I've never heard anything about Finnish driver training - if I were naming a well known exception it would be Germany.
- zalew 14y ago
  A short presentation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnYGhAXbDsM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnYGhAXbDsM I'm pretty sure there are better films about Finnish courses somewhere. I've heard Austria also cares about training for winter conditions.
- abenga 14y ago
  There was also an interesting Top Gear segment where Mika Hakkinen gave James May a racing lesson[1]. In it they talked about why Finns seem to do so much better than people from other countries in motor racing. A bit of it was to do with their driver training. [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bmqdnx5R1U http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bmqdnx5R1U

ekianjo 14y ago

"This is a great development, considering the recklessness of many young drivers and their relatively high accident rates." Wow, restricting people's freedom, a great development? Seriously ? Why not restrict access to computers considering the recklessness of "hackers" ? And so on. You are going to build a bleak future if people do not drive as much.

egypturnash 14y ago
Or. Imagine that Google's self-driving car efforts come to fruition. That self-driving cars are common, legal, and trusted. Who needs to drive in that future? More: Imagine a successor to Zipcar with a fleet of self-driving cars. Who needs to even own a car? You just log in and summon a car from a nearby lot. It's there in a few minutes, and it takes you where you need to go; when you need to go back home, you summon another one. In the future, owning a car and knowing how to drive it yourself may well be considered eccentric.
- ekianjo 14y ago
  Even if that becomes the norm (and I doubt this would happen very fast even in the most optimistic scenarii), I seriously doubt self-driving would disappear. The practice would still continue because for some people and for some occasions, driving is a leisure as well. And I am not just talking about speed, but simply being on the road and going somewhere without precise goal. Just like one can go for a walk and wander around. GPS-driven cars are not going to be any good for that kind of usage.
  - adrianN 14y ago
    It's only a matter of time until human drivers will be banned because they cause too many accidents and impede traffic. Robot cars don't need traffic lights for example, because they can just coordinate their speeds such as to not collide. They can drive much closer to each other at high speeds.
    - yardie 14y ago

softbuilder 14y ago

>This is a great development As someone who was socioeconomically prevented from getting a license until his mid-20s, no, it's not. A license in many cases is a ticket out of poverty and a chance to break the cycle of poverty. This is especially true in rural or far-flung suburban areas. That said, the poor behavior of young drivers is a legitimate concern. I'm all for addressing it. Just not a fan of economically disenfranchising people.

pixl97 14y ago
A better way to word that is 'the poor behavior of young _____', you could put any number of words in there and have the same effect. Youth are not well known for having great risk assessment abilities. At the same time, they do not have property, wealth, and families to add in to any risk assessment they would make. That said, youth need experience, we are not ready made adults and have to suffer the consequence of our mistakes to learn much of the time. Studies showing that adults make fewer poor decisions should realize a lot of that is because of the previous poor decisions that person had already made.
- nitrogen 14y ago
  That said, youth need experience, we are not ready made adults and have to suffer the consequence of our mistakes to learn much of the time. I wonder if an argument could be made that the observed phenomenon of extended adolescence is a direct result of the excessive sheltering of youth.
  - eli_gottlieb 14y ago
    I've certainly noticed that every time new laws are passed restricting young people, a few years later a study is published showing that the brain doesn't mature until even older. I'm not sure which way the causality runs, but I've definitely seen the supposed age of brain maturity rise from 18-20 to 22 to, nowadays, 25. Which means that apparently by the time my brain actually matures next year, I'll have been able to vote for 7 years, hold all legal responsibilities for 7 years, drink legally for 7 years (outside the USA) and 4 years (inside the USA), and apply for a driver's license for 9 years. I'll have actually lived outside my parents' home for 7 years, been in a single steady relationship for 6 years, supported myself financially for 3 years and held a driver's license for 2 years. Apparently my legal qualification and actual, demonstrated ability to behave like an adult - all of which is actually pretty normal for someone my age whom I know - either demonstrates unusually precocious brain maturity, or doesn't actually require brain maturity, or these "studies" are showing the effects of society's treatment of young people as barely-functional retards for ever-more-extended periods.

yolonoexception 14y ago

>Young people must now take more behind-the-wheel training (which is more expensive) >fulfil additional requirements for permits This is not true at all. I do not know where he is getting his information. And there are literally no requirements for the permit. All you do is take a vision test and a knowledge multiple choice on the computer which anyone can pass if they know the simple basics. >and once they are allowed to drive, they are often restricted to driving in the daytime without passengers. This only applies to people with a provisional license (if you are under 18), and you can have passengers as long as they are in your family (brothers or sisters), and this only lasts for the first 6 months.

BruceIV 14y ago
These requirements do tend to differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Yours is likely rather permissive.
- saryant 14y ago
  I was able to skirt through a loophole and never take a driver's test. Not at the permit level, not for my license. Talk about permissive. (This was in 2006)

r00fus 14y ago

> This is a great development, considering the recklessness of many young drivers and their relatively high accident rates. This would be a great development indeed, if alternate forms of transportation like buses, light-rail and train services were vastly improved. While I champion the idea of bike commuting (ie live close to where you work), carpooling and vanpooling (have done all three for years sequentially), the goal of getting more dangerous drivers (ie, inexperienced teens) off the road shouldn't disenfranchise them. Non-drivers need transport as well, and most US cities are abhorrent for this compared to other developed countries (HK, France, UK, Brazil, Russia all have amazing transport systems).

wybo 14y ago

> I always thought that the roads would be much safer if our legal drinking age and legal driving ages were switched They are switched in many Western European countries, and imho that works fine. Also because there generally is more public transportation and/or neighbourhood pubs/clubs. (though some countries have raised the drinking age, making them come about at the same time, which is even worse) A 16 drinking age, 18 driving age does create quite a different youth culture though. Less fuss about alcohol (though it differing more with parents permissiveness), more about cars, and early networks and contacts being more local.

dade_ 14y ago
In Alberta, I passed the test for a learners permit at 14, which required being with a licenced driver. Practicing driving at 14 on Sunday mornings and quiet highways is an excellent way to learn to drive, and I think to train the brain to react automatically to events that happen too quickly for the conscious mind. My experience anyway. That said, thanks Dad and my friend that donated part of his clutch. :)

Mvandenbergh 14y ago

A better solution to that is graduated licensing where all new drivers start with restrictions on what times they can drive, at what speed, whether they can drive on highways, with friends of the same age in the car, etc.