The drivers license thread
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I got mine at 23. I had a permit as a teen, but I didn't have a car so I didn't bother taking the final test until after uni.
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Huh. Everybody I know has rushed to get theirs as soon as they turned 18, and I still keep getting pressured to finally get one despite the fact that driving a car here is costlier, takes more time and requires more focus than just using public transport.
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I was 17 when I got my license
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Just about all my meatspace friends got theirs right away too. I had a permit, but as soon as I turned 18 I was on a bus headed across the country to a new state, where I'd have to get a fresh permit all over again. And I didn't have a car, so it didn't seem useful.
I failed the test in my husband's car, too. He drives a huge, old, unresponsive SUV, while I find it much easier to drive my little sedan.
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I was 17 when I got my license
Everyone I knew got theirs at 16. Including me. And back then when you had a license it was a real goddamned license. None of this turned sideways bullshit because you were under 21. No time of day or passenger restrictions either.
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UK licenses have never had time of day or passenger restrictions; every now and again, there's talk of bringing them in, but it never goes anywhere
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I know that by the time my younger siblings got their licenses stuff had changed. I'm not sure what the local stuff is, but I'll be finding out soon enough. My daughter is 14 and she can get her license at 16 in our state.
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My daughter is 14
That is learner's permit age isn't it? At least it was where I grew up.
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Varies by state. In CA it's 15.5.
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In AK it's 14 & I think there is a graduated license now (like only one passenger for first 6 months or something), but full used to be 16.
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@boomzilla said:
My daughter is 14
That is learner's permit age isn't it? At least it was where I grew up.
Nope. 15.5 years.
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In the UK it's 16 for mopeds, 17 for anything else, and there's no difference between when you can get a provisional license and a full one. In theory, if you'd been driving off-road or something, you could do your theory and practical tests on your 17th birthday and be fully licensed
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@RaceProUK said:
I was 17 when I got my license
But we me already established you are a petrol head
Got my license at 16. I am not a "petrol head".
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@RaceProUK said:
I was 17 when I got my license
Everyone I knew got theirs at 16. Including me. And back then when you had a license it was a real goddamned license. None of this turned sideways bullshit because you were under 21. No time of day or passenger restrictions either.
Amen!
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And back then when you had a license it was a real goddamned license. None of this turned sideways bullshit because you were under 21. No time of day or passenger restrictions either
Where was I? Oh yes, I was wearing an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time...
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In theory, if you'd been driving off-road or something, you could do your theory and practical tests on your 17th birthday and be fully licensed
I don't think you can book the practical test until you've passed the theory test. Or maybe it's just really dumb to try because you can't pass the practical test until you've done the theory test (which I believe is really simple).
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Got my license at 16. I am not a "petrol head".
but you are a Murican. In normal places we first learn youngsters to drink and then to drive, not the other way around.
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The questions in the theory test come in two flavours: insultingly simple common sense
You are driving behind another car on a single lane road. The front car brakes suddenly. Should you
- accelerate
- engage your handbrake
- slow down to avoid a collision
- exit your vehicle while it is moving
and facts from the Highway Code you need to memorise that won't be the slightest use in real life
What is the stopping distance from 64.325 miles per hour?
- 73m
- 73m 50cm
- 75m
- 76m 18 cm
Then there's hazard perception, consisting of "click the mouse when that lorry that was obviously going to pull out on you pulls out on you"
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but you are a Murican. In normal places we first learn youngsters to drink and then to drive, not the other way around.
What does learning to drink have to with anything? I still don't drink, and I'm well past the legal age. But I drive every day.
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I was a krajillion billion trillion years old when I got my driver's license, and it was for a HORSE!
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I was just a little over 24 when I got mine, and I only did that because I moved to a place where I needed it.
@blakeyrat said:
it was for a HORSE!
Wouldn't it have been a dinosaur, or maybe an asteroid?
Maybe he's trying to say he's one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse? I'm thinking he either rides a pale horse or a red one.
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You are driving behind another car on a single lane road. The front car brakes suddenly. Should you- accelerate
The Fast and the Furious arcade game taught me that if I double-tap the accelerator pedal, I will do a wheelie and then perform multiple somersaults over the car in front of me after I vault off of it, which will also subtract time from my lap time.
What is the stopping distance from 64.325 miles per hour?
Probably a little more than 100 feet. But not everyone has performance brakes, and that figure is going to be completely different on every car. Why memorize it? Why not revert to the "two second rule" mantra, which has the benefit of being a good guideline at most speeds?
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Everyone I knew got theirs at 16. Including me. And back then when you had a license it was a real goddamned license. None of this turned sideways bullshit because you were under 21. No time of day or passenger restrictions either.
Permit at 15, license at 16. 16-21, you got a red background (underage for drinking, DANGER!), 21+ it was blue.
Now the same age groups apply, but it's become a draconian process:
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Look at it this way, if you take your kid(s) to DMV to get the real license there's a 10% chance someone 2-4x their age will fail a mandatory 100% correct-to-pass-portion and have a public meltdown.
Kinda nerve racking as a kid but hilarious as an adult.
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The fucked-up part is, farm kids are usually driving tractors and other fuck-off big equipment long before they're eligible to get their on-road license.
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my friend had been driving their truck & tractor in town for farm work since he was 12.
Filed Under: Things that no one complains about when there are only 250 people in the town.Also, here you can get a hardship license at 14. It comes with a ton of restrictions, basicallly allowing you to drive to predetermined destinations within a 25mi radius of home during daylight hours only, with no passengers except family members allowed. It was mostly reserved for cases where a family needs their kid driving for work/farm purposes. I didnt know anyone that had one though.
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I don't have a drivers license, but I do have a voter ID which I have used for several identification-related purposes, none of which are voting.
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I have a CA ID card and just use public transport... and 'bumming' rides from family, I guess.
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I got mine at 18 which is earliest you can get it in my country. Learning permit at 17 so that I could take exam right after birthday.
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In theory, if you'd been driving off-road or something, you could do your theory and practical tests on your 17th birthday and be fully licensed
I got my license the day after my 17th birthday, only because of days of the week, and I never really drive off-road. Where I was living was a good 4+ km from a bus stop and I'm pretty sure the bus wouldn't have gotten me to early uni classes anyway. So I bought my own car with some inheritance.
Back in those days one didn't even have to wear an L or P plate. Or any restrictions like 90km/hr. Iirc alcohol was 0.02% (for 18+) but now it's 0 on P platers.
But when my wife was pregnant with our first we sold both our dodgey cars and bought a decent family car, so we've been a one-car family since then and I take the train to work.
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Got my permit at 15, "intermediate" license at 16, "full" license at 18, and upgraded to a motorcycle license at 22. I learned to drive at around age 12 or 13 though, one of the perks of living on a farm and having a beater farm truck on hand.
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Permit at 15, license at 17.
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Everyone I knew got theirs at 16. Including me. And back then when you had a license it was a real goddamned license. None of this turned sideways bullshit because you were under 21. No time of day or passenger restrictions either.
Same here. I got my permit as soon as I was able to and I got my license on the exact day I was eligible to. My father came and picked me up on my lunch break from school, we went to the DMV, I dropped him off at his shop and drove myself back to school.
Also, no restrictions on my license. As soon as I got it I could carry passengers and drive at night, etc. Those were the days...
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but you are a Murican. In normal places we first learn youngsters to drink and then to drive, not the other way around.
In 'Murica we let our youngsters learn how to drink all on their own, without supervision.
We also teach them abstinence-only sex-ed, because if you tell horny teenagers not to have sex instead of teaching them how to safely...they are totally going to listen to you. They respect authority!
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I got my permit as soon as I was able to
I was lazy so I may have waited till I was 15 on my permit, but license was day of too.
As soon as I got it I could carry passengers
Which was important for me cause my school didn't have busing so I could drive the car pool to and from.
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We also teach them abstinence-only sex-ed
In at least some districts there are school clubs that help fix that by letting the students do the explaining by doing "presentations" to the health classes. That way it isn't a teacher explaining things so it gets around bans.
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but now it's 0 on P platers.
Well, that's a stupid limit, clearly invented by someone who lives in la la land.
Zero limits are impossible to actually comply with in general, before you even get to the question of measurement tolerance and the fact that many humans have a small amount of alcohol in their system without drinking anything at all.
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Got mine at 17. I recall some minor restrictions until 18 like no driving after midnight and only 1 non-family member in the car, but nobody ever paid attention to those, and those might have been permit ones.
I lived in the burbs at the time, so a car was a necessity.
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The fucked-up part is, farm kids are usually driving tractors and other fuck-off big equipment long before they're eligible to get their on-road license.
I grew up with a dad who owned mines and a grandpa that had a 2500 acre farm. I resemble that remark.
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You do know that a limit of "zero alcohol" does not mean "has not a single ethanol molecule in his body"?
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What is the lowest the breath testers can read? 0.001%? Then that is the tolerance for "0".
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What is the lowest the breath testers can read? 0.001%? Then that is the tolerance for "0".
Depends on how the sensor configures binning - i.e. is the measured value centered in the bin or at one edge. If the sensor performs measurement flooring, then you're essentially correct. if the value is centered in the bin, then the tolerance is +/- 0.0005%.
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Back in those days one didn't even have to wear an L or P plate. Or any restrictions like 90km/hr. Iirc alcohol was 0.02% (for 18+) but now it's 0 on P platers.
So now if you take cough syrup you're not legal to drive for a few hours?