I feel so trapped without a driving license… can’t go anywhere…

I think everyone has a driver’s license at 16 here in the US, but I’m already over 18 with no license… :(

  • Sequentialsilence@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    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.

  • JayJLeas@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    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.

  • Alsjemenou@lemy.nl
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    4 days ago

    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).

    • [object Object]@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      I bought a car and learned to drive for the, errr, fun of it. Just like cycling, driving feels unlike any other common experience. However, working from home made it needed quite rarely.

      A side effect is that I lost the feeling of fascinating go-with-the-flow orderly chaos when looking at traffic. Now it all has meaning.

      • disregardable@lemmy.zip
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        5 days ago

        I’ve tried getting my permit twice before, but the driving schools in my area are all in the middle of nowhere and difficult to schedule for adults.

  • Vanth@reddthat.com
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    6 days ago

    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.

      • Vanth@reddthat.com
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        5 days ago

        My home state had a permit for that too, certain vehicles I could drive on certain roads under restrictive speed limits. So I could, like, drive a tractor or farm truck with the right license plates down county roads to another field.

        That was separate from a school permit. The nearest school bus stop to me was miles away and didn’t go directly to my school so I would have spent 3+ hours per school day on multiple buses if I hadn’t been able to drive myself in. Not to mention sports on weekends and other stuff where the normal school day bus wasn’t running. My permit restricted the hours I could drive, it had to be to or from school or jobs, and I couldn’t give anyone rides other than siblings. I think I wasn’t supposed to drive on the interstate too.

  • rumschlumpel@feddit.org
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    6 days ago

    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).

  • Pamasich@kbin.earth
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    5 days ago

    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.

  • Ryanmiller70@lemmy.zip
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    5 days ago

    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.

  • wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works
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    6 days ago

    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.

  • dimjim@sh.itjust.works
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    5 days ago

    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.

  • Waraugh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    5 days ago

    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).