I went out today with my dad and started learning to drive for the first time.

I started learning in my dads 2001 Hyundai Accent 1.3i, it was pretty fun, all I really did was get used to the clutch bite, pulling away, stopping and messing with the steering wheel, driving in circles and stuff, it was pretty fun.

Seems simple enough, the only problem is doing all the different things at the same time.

How long did it take all you lot from first drive to passing your test? (and add some for americans, i've heard your tests are a piece of piss compared to ours in England.)

Seems like good stuff, stalling is annoying though, although I learned how to overcome it, my only problem is getting used to the tiny amounts of pressure thats needed on the pedals, and the foot pivot needed to gently take my foot off the clutch, i bet driving an automatic is easy as hell.

ah well, can't wait to go out again, to make this thread even more valid, post your engine size.

I had my Learners Permit for over a year before I got my license. It was just something I wasnt really excited enough about to get done very quickly. I did pass my drivers test on the first try though.

The actual written test was easy as hell, the driving part was slightly harder, but still easy.

I had to take a semester of drivers ed in order to get my license. I took my written test for learners permit and my dad made me drive home from there... First time ever and I was out on a highway driving home 30 miles.

Anyway, my drivers test was pretty easy. Nowadays they're way more strict, even after you get your license you have all these restrictions until you turn 18. All because some lawmaker's kid died because he wasn't mature enough to concentrate on the road while he had others in the car. Dumb, dumb, dumb. And then all these people who have been tracking the results of the new legislation are so happy that teen fatalities are down, DUH if you take teens off the road, less will die. Take adults off the road and less will die, too, idiots!

Anyway, my Jeep has a 4.0L inline 6 cylinder engine that puts out about 200HP.

It took me about three years. My dad started taking me out on back roads to practice drving when I was 13. I got my learner's permit when I was 15, didn't take Driver's Ed, and wound up with my license about a month after I turned 16. It ended up that I only had to take the driving test to get my license, because I had taken a written test to get my permit. The test was easy, basically just drove around for ten/fifteen minutes practicing things like parallel parking (which I still suck at).

exactly the same case with me, it's just i havent gotten the license yet. within the next month, though. just need to work on parking and i should do fine.

I've been driving the pickup truck around on the farm since I was about 12; I got my G1 (crazy Ontario term for learner's permit) when I turned 16, got my G2 (crazy Ontario second level learner's permit type of thingy) eight months later (you can get it in 8 months if you take driver's ed, else it takes a year), then a year later I got my full license.

The tests were pretty easy. The written test was absurdly simple, the driving tests are harder but they're pretty lenient - I screwed up the parallel parking and a bunch of other stuff, but I still passed. Come to think of it, I still can't parallel park very well.

I had my permit for about 6 months then got my license. Learn to drive a stick in a day because it was a case of learn it or don't drive. I as profient enough to get around but certainly not a master of the clutch. Took aabout a month or so of driving to really get it down like it was second nature.

Brian: A lot of places are passing legislation limiting the number of other teenagers those with new licenses may have in the car. This I think is probably the most effective way of preventing teenage deaths due to careless driving.

The one thing I have never understood is why new drivers aren't allowed to drive at night. It seems to me that it would be better to let teenagers drive at night when there is less traffic than during the day when you have such things as rush hour.

I waited until I was 18 to get license. This way I could skip all the classes and whatnot. I got my learners permit at 17.5. There were less restrictions at that age. It wasn't until the last two weeks of high school that I got driver's license. I learned how to drive from my dad and with his 1994 Dodge Dakota...manual. Oh boy did that thing ever jack rabbit. But I'm glad I learned a manual right then. Now I'm forced to drive automatics.

Quick edit: In California, no "newbie" driver can carry anyone under the age of 25 for the first six months of having their license. This covers provisional licenses only.

I really, really need to learn how to drive stick. My friend said she'd teach me, but that wont happen till this summer at the earliest.

Yes...I think everyone needs to know how to drive a stick. Not only because it's fun, but also because not knowing how limits your usefulness in...say, an emergency of some kind.

But mainly it's cool.

I had tot ake a driver's ed course in addition to 6 months of learner's-permit riving in order to get my license free of restrictions. Passed the (yes, very easy) test my first try,

Then I stopped driving my mom's (automatic) '03 4runner and learned to drive our old '93 Explorer. Drove that for a half a year or so until it broke again (that's why my mom got the 4runner) and it was going to cost more to fix than the car was worth. So we got rid of it and my parents bought me a '97 Jeep Wrangler. It's cool 'cuz it's like a mini-jeep...it's got a 2.5L I4. I think it's supposed to put out somewhere around 120hp.

Umm, in america, aren't your tests done on a set course driving around cones and stuff?

Over here we do all tests and lessons on real roads

Don't know where you would have gotten that idea. Our tests are on real roads everywhere I've seen.

Tv has lied to me

I'm old enough to have a permit, and i have a car. My mom won't let me drive cause my 3.0 gpa

Whaaaah:(

This is my point exactly. The only reason it's effective in reducing teenage deaths is because LESS teenagers are on the roads. You still have unexperienced drivers out there and they still get in accidents and die. You just spread the deaths to later in life - you think if they've been driving a year and then turn 18 and load their car up with partyers they're not still going to have an accident? The only reason there are less deaths is because there are less people in the car - it doesn't prevent careless driving AT ALL. You could take it one step further and say adults can't drive at night, then 100% of night car accident fatalities will be prevented. However, adults will then drive during the day and STILL FREAKING CRASH AND DIE. So you can skew the statistics and say, "We had a 100% decrease in night fatalities!" and make that sound really good, but then they don't go and tell you the rest of it, "oh, and also fatalaties during the day have increased by the exact number fatalaties during the night decreased." It's all BS and it's skewing of the statistics.

Did you know that if no one were allowed to drive ever, human deaths in automobile accidents would be 0%?

Hooray for band-aid legislation.

Brian: It is also a proven fact that Teenagers are involved in more traffic accidents and incidents than any other age group, excluding perhaps the elderly. There is something to be said, I think, for limiting their potential distractions for a couple of years until they have gained both the experience and the maturity (although I agree that second part is debatable) to handle driving in certain situations where distractions are abundant.

In place of people there are overly loud radios and cellphones. Both are equal if not more distracting on the novice driver. A CA legislator is proposing a bill to disallow cell phones for teenage drivers. This was debated on the John Zeigler show a week ago. John brought up some points of "why just teens?"

Unless your using hands free, driving while talking on a mobile phone is against the law now in the uk, you wouldn't be able to tell though by how many people you see driving one handed while on the phone.

I passed my car test about 6 months after I started lessons, one lesson a week, an average of 1.5 hours a lesson. Passed first time though.

I have a learners permit for trucks of any weight as long as it doesn't have a trailer (so no artics), but I keep failing the test for stupid things so I've kinda given up for now. THe last test I failed because I was too slow on approce to a roundabout! I didn't think 20mph in a 15 ton truck was slow myself but what do I know, I'm only the learner

My current tin can on wheels is a ford escort 1299cc, I personally think the cc stands for "can't climb" because it's rubbish on hills, and guess what, most of the terrain around here is hills

...You might want to keep that to yourself. :p


You were just looking for an excuse to post your HP, weren't you?

It's not too hard once you get the hang of it. Just follow this basic line of procedure. Let the clutch out s-l-o-w-l-y, until you start to get the hang of it. Basically you want to keep your foot on the break, and slowly begin to let the clutch out, until you start to feel the car wanting to move forward, then take your foot off the brake. Depending on the car (and if you're on an incline or not), you may start moving forward. Either way you just slowly apply the gas pedal while at the same time letting the foot off the clutch (at about the same speed). That's the easiest way to start out. You can usually get a good feel of how much gas you need to give the engine that way (so you won't kill it as much) and if you're on a hill it will help to prevent you from rolling backwards. Of course, you won't jump off the line (that requires revving the engine and popping out the clutch (basically, but don't try it until you're very comfortable with the car, especially as the owner of the car you're learning on will probably kill you)).

Elderly have more accidents per mile driven than teenagers, but more teenagers drive and they drive a lot more, so they are in the most accidents.

In California, provisonal drivers (under 18) can't drive anyone under the age of 25, save family members, for the six months they drive. Having friends in the car is usally the biggest problem teenagers face because of the extra distraction. I mean, how many more accidents do you read about or see on the news that involve a car full of teenagers vs. a single teenager driving?

oh and...
<3

The sad thing is, that same reasoning is used for enacting gun control.

Except guns are made to kill people and cars are made to transport people from one place to another.

Little detail there.

Hehe, it still amuses me when people think of manual gears as something unusual.

Damn you people and being born before me several numbers of years before me!
I find it extremley frustrating not being able to have a job and a car.
My allowance is always being withheld from me from my parents becaue 'they dont have the money'
This thread angers the Stinkywrix

People being 85% of the United States. I despise automatic transmissions though.

Do you honestly believe that after two years of driving with no distractions, when you finally do allow them to drive WITH distractions, it will be any different? All this does is shift the age group up two years!

Here are the facts: I was never involved in an accident when I was a teenager. Neither was my brother nor my two sisters. Hell, the only person in my entire high school to get killed in a car accident was a guy who got piss drunk and WALKED out into oncoming traffic.

There is no need to punish an entire age group of people just because a small percentage of them don't have the experience or maturity to drive safely. How about finding a way to punish just the people who are acting irresponsibly?

You know what, I take back that comment about none of us being in accidents - my youngest sister was rearended by a 16 year old. My sister was sitting at a red light, behind a car, and this girl in a minivan didn't even notice the fact that the light was red and there was stopped traffic. She hit my sister at 35mph. My sister and her car got sandwiched and she is now recovering from brain surgery that was done to treat the symptoms that were caused by this accident.

This was in broad daylight and there was nobody else in the minivan with this girl. You know what she told my sister? "Sorry, I was looking at the cute guy on the side of the road."

If you honestly believe this type of legislation helps anything you are sorely mistaken. It doesn't remove distracted drivers from the road, it postpones SOME distractions to a later time, but the driver still has to deal with said distractions.

I wish they would lock that girl up for what she did, but I don't think every teenager should be punished for it.

Regarding stick vs. automatic - My first car was an automatic, my second, third and fourth were sticks. My fifth was an auto (which I had for about 6 months), and the one I have now is a stick. I love stick shifters and I would not like a daily driver to be an auto.

That said, I am planning on buying a truck to tow my boat and haul crap around, and that will definitely be an automatic transmission. It's just so much easier to tow that way.

<3

I'm 16, live in AL, don't have a permit, don't have a license, and don't give a damn. Frankly, I don't want to be responsible for having to drive. That's just me though.

I drive a stick, and I'm damn proud!
When my dad was teaching me to drive it, I had loads of trouble... first time out on my own though, I caught on easy. And this is with a car I felt was a b**** to drive.... now I love the thing.
Unfortunately, my driving privileges are a little limited, so I dont get to drive a whole lot (uber-conservative mother problem again :()

[edit] I forgot to answer the thread question. 14.5 months with permit, and I've had the license for a little over 2 weeks

I'm having my second driver's test next month (6th). I failed my first. Theoretical and dangerous situation tests were a breeze though.

it sucks. the test sucks. both of them. i almost killed the instructor because he sounded like a ****ing robot. I thought the parallel park was complete bull**** because they had it up against a mother****ing WALL, i mean what the ****?! why the **** a WALL and not a CURB?! meh i failed it twice cause of the parallel park. 1st time i hit the barrel, second time i wasn't close enough to the WALL, the 3rd time I almost failed cause i was using my mom's car and didn't know what 'fog lights' were, and they of course were ON. GLAD I DON'T HAVE TO DO THAT **** AGAIN!

i've only had 1 ticket so far...been driving over a year....pulled over for accellerating like a bat out of hell when the light went from red to green....tires squeeled, cop who i didn't think was a cop followed too-closely, which resulted in me getting paranoid and going 5 miles over...so i get 3 points taken off my license plus i had to pay $100. 'careless driving' ****ing cop. so now i piss off everybody behind me by taking 3 seconds AFTER the light changes to step on the gas. XD

I easily passed both my written and driven tests the first time. But then again, I also flipped my first car on a rainy day. It's a long story, and not terribly interesting, but it was a single car accident I had when I was coming home from work. I was alone in the car, going a little too fast around a sharp curve, and skidded. I overcorrected and ended up upside-down in the creek beside the road. Other than the car though, nothing was hurt.

However, I have never had an accident since then (3 years and counting now), and I have never gotten a ticket of any sort (knock on wood). I learned from my stupidity and now I consider myself to be one of the safer drivers that I know.

I honesty don't think more strict teen driving laws could have prevented my accident. It was just a case of misjudged speed and reacting in a way that got me wrecked.

Same here. I love my stick-shift piece-of-**** car. It helps you squeeze every last ounce of juice out of your motor too. I beat a Tiburon at the quarter-mile back home last summer. His was automatic. My Cavalier is a standard.

240 hp 3.2l V6

Acura Legend = Win

Parallel parking is scientifically impossible. Anyone who says they can are lying. Anyone claiming to have witnessed it were dreaming. The laws of physics make it clear that parallel parking is impossible.

My driving test was easy. I have my Novice Licence (which is a step between Learners and Normal Class 5). I could get my full class 5, but I paid good money for this one, and the only restrictions for me are that I have to have 0 Blood Alcohol Content (a given I think it should be like that for everyone). And I have to have a little "N" sign displayed in the rear of my car.

Oh crud! I just realized parallel parking wasn't on my driving test!
I wonder if I've been blessed for an 'easy' pass, or will be cursed when I have to do it but find out I can't anymore...