---- Aristotle Sagan <killer.jupiter@GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>
>
> 2.) The youngest is almost 15 1/2. Means she can get her learners permit
> out here in Caleefornia. While have taken her for a bunch of Saturday or
> Sunday afternoon driving lessons around the local community college parking
> lots, the whole thing makes me nervous. While she is picking up the whole
> clutch thing pretty well, watching how she drives reminds me of how much
> multi-tasking we all do driving. And I mean driving, not drinking coffee,
> checking the radio, etc. The simple act of efficient driving is incredibly
> complex.
>
> So the question is... How do you ever let your young one out of the nest
> with a 2 ton death machine in their hands?
>

When my daughter was learning to drive at age 16 (had learner's permit -- in Texas called "beginner's license") I taught her.  It was hard to know how long to spend on the streets, but one afternoon we had been at it about an hour.  She went through a stop sign (slowly), and I said, rather loudly, "stop!"  She did, quite forcefully, and then said quietly to me, "Dad, it's really hard."  We were done for the day, of course, but I tried to give her encouragement about how well she had done, and that I had kept us at it too long.

When are they ready to go out on their own?  Really, when they are about 30 if male, maybe a little younger if female because girls have better sense at a younger age than boys.  But that's not practical.  When we let her drive on her own, she could not have any other teenagers in the car until she had been driving for a year, and then no more than one.  She could not drive on the freeway until she was 18, at which time she also could have other kids with her (of course, at 18, she could have just told us that she was grown, and would do as she pleased, but she didn't).  David McNeely