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.

    • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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      5 days ago

      When I was less than 10, my grandpa would have me steer his boat, so he could troll off the back. Only problem was that he was constantly telling me to slow down so the fish could catch his bait, while I wanted to open it up and fly!

  • 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.

    • [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.

  • 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).

  • 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.

    • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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      5 days ago

      I had a girlfriend whose 95 year old immigrant grandmother used to walk to the grocery store every day, crossing a major road.

      She died crossing that road, when she was hit by a 16 yo girl who had just gotten her license, and was on her first solo drive.

  • 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.

    Edit: throwing this in that my gf is 33 and still never had a license. She tried in the past, but nobody took her driving and I couldn’t cause I live 600 miles away. She’s trying again since her family has more free time now to do it.

  • 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.

  • hornedfiend@piefed.social
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    5 days ago

    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.

  • skulblaka@sh.itjust.works
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    6 days ago

    I got mine at 24.

    My parents flat refused to allow me to get a driver’s license, I assume because it would have given me the freedom to leave their house under my own power. I didn’t end up getting one until after I went to and came back from college.

    I learned from a driving school, since my parents seemed uninterested in teaching me.

    The experience of trying to hold a job or get to and from class between the ages of 18-24 is one of the primary experiences driving me to the idea that American public transportation sucks absolute asshole and desperately needs improvement. It used to take me two and a half hours to get to work. My work was a 15 minute drive from my house, but since my wonderful father refused to drive me to and from work, I would have to take a bus all the way across town to the central station and then hop another bus to take me all the way back across town to damn near the same place I got picked up at.