Learner's Permit
Thread Starter
Burning Brakes
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 1,241
Likes: 4
From: Okinawa Okinawa
Learner's Permit
So, I took my daughter to get her learners permit this morning. After she got done driving my truck I found out she has a long way to go before unleashing her on the vette. 
I need a beer.
I need a beer.
2026 Loser of the Year
Joined: Sep 2013
Posts: 36,597
Likes: 7,046
From: New Or-leens Loo-z-anna
As for the Vette......1 to 2 years of driving experience before sitting in the driver's seat!!!!!!!
Advanced
Joined: Nov 2012
Posts: 91
Likes: 0
From: Andover Mn
Started my kids driving garden tractor, then beat up old gokart. Would wet the grass down so it would slide around good to teach them how to control a slide and come out of it. This is very important for our winters in Minnesota. The boys did good, however my daughter did a lot of donuts and tore siding corners off the shed as part of our gokart track went around the garden shed. My youngest son (10 years younger than the older 2) got more driving than they did. Due to a fluke in our Minnesota drivers education he had his permit for 1 1/2years before he turned 16. Everytime I needed to go somewhere and he was available I made him drive. Before he was 16 I had him in the vette doing hard 1st to second shifts so he could learn how to control slide when the tires would break loose. He probably had close to 40k miles drive time by the time he got his license and is a very good driver.
Mark
Mark
Burning Brakes
Joined: Apr 2013
Posts: 926
Likes: 2
From: Castle Rock CO
I was teaching one of the kids to drive a stick in a 1992 Miata that was an adventure. More than once he forgot to let off the gas when switching gears and would redline the engine. We finally bought him an automatic which he ran off the dirt road we lived on coming home one night even though we told him many times never drive over 30 on dirt he was doing about 50 lost control and launched the car into a ravine than knocked a tree over. The older son took out a tree on our dirt driveway and totaled 2 more cars just 2 years before this one started to drive. They really do not take care of cars until they have to buy one themselves I learned.
I never wrecked any of my cars when I was a kid because my parents made me buy my own cars. Before doing something really stupid I would practice spinning my cars in a large parking lot on snow and learned how to stay calm than learned how to gain control again.
I even showed them many times how easy it was to lose control on dirt with my cars by getting the rear end loose and spinning the car in a controlled spin. But they were much better drivers than me so they thought
I never wrecked any of my cars when I was a kid because my parents made me buy my own cars. Before doing something really stupid I would practice spinning my cars in a large parking lot on snow and learned how to stay calm than learned how to gain control again.
I even showed them many times how easy it was to lose control on dirt with my cars by getting the rear end loose and spinning the car in a controlled spin. But they were much better drivers than me so they thought
Last edited by MakoJoe; Jan 11, 2014 at 07:13 PM.
Thread Starter
Burning Brakes
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 1,241
Likes: 4
From: Okinawa Okinawa
She has been driving for about a year but finally got her permit. Gotta love country roads where no one else is.
Her biggest problem is she is so short she has a hard time clearing her blind spot because the seat is in the way when she looks backwards.
She is signed up for a driver's ed course then when she is done with that, there is a defensive driver's course I took for the Army (really just a course on a race track that teaches to maximize performance) that I am going to take her too. Besides fun, teaches you to maximize braking and skid corrections. I'll tell them to hold off on the J-turns.
Did this one time already, this just happens to be my youngest.
Her biggest problem is she is so short she has a hard time clearing her blind spot because the seat is in the way when she looks backwards.
She is signed up for a driver's ed course then when she is done with that, there is a defensive driver's course I took for the Army (really just a course on a race track that teaches to maximize performance) that I am going to take her too. Besides fun, teaches you to maximize braking and skid corrections. I'll tell them to hold off on the J-turns.
Did this one time already, this just happens to be my youngest.
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Thats the first thing they teach here in NJ. 
Melting Slicks
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 2,071
Likes: 147
From: S Nevada
Kids need a starter car. It should have excellent visibility with minimal blind spots. It shouldn't cost a fortune and not be powerful. I raised 3 kids. Every 1 of them had totaled a car by the time they were 21. None were injured. A car such as a dodge neon, or older honda civic or Toyota corolla are perfect new driver cars. It's going to happen. Not a question of if, but when. A C3 for a teen driver? Uh no. Crash safety? None.
Pro
Joined: Sep 2012
Posts: 600
Likes: 6
From: Key West Florida
my "starter car" was a 1976 Monte Carlo Landau with swivel seats, that was in 2005. with a 350 and 4bbl carb, i thought it was the fastest thing on the street! boy was i wrong, great car to learn in tho. wish i still had it tho........ sold it in 2006 for something newer and faster, a 1977 Monte Carlo S coupe. lol
Melting Slicks
Joined: Jul 2010
Posts: 2,503
Likes: 33
From: McGrady NC
St. Jude Donor '15-'16
I learned to drive in a 1958 Chevrolet road tractor with a 348 and 5 speed when I was thirteen. I was pulling 45' trailers between our terminals and to customer locations at fourteen. All this was in 1967-68 when US 421 in North Carolina was still a two lane road. I looked older and never was stopped for anything. When I finally took Driver's Ed in high school, the instructor used me to run all his errands before school. Things were a lot simpler back then. I'd be afraid to do it now with all the nut jobs and texting kids on the road these days. My kids were taught to drive well before their 16th birthdays as well.
Drifting
Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 1,886
Likes: 9
Kids need a starter car. It should have excellent visibility with minimal blind spots. It shouldn't cost a fortune and not be powerful. I raised 3 kids. Every 1 of them had totaled a car by the time they were 21. None were injured. A car such as a dodge neon, or older honda civic or Toyota corolla are perfect new driver cars. It's going to happen. Not a question of if, but when. A C3 for a teen driver? Uh no. Crash safety? None.
Racer
Joined: Nov 2012
Posts: 340
Likes: 2
From: Port Washington WI
My dad taught me to drive in a '47 ****** CJ2a. Took me out to the middle of a big field, put it in 4-low, 3rd gear, gave it a little hand throttle and told me to let the clutch out. As the day went on I graduated to 2-high and the foot feed. Wish we still had that Jeep.
Pro
Joined: Oct 2013
Posts: 557
Likes: 3
From: El Sobrante CA
My dad taught me to drive in a '47 ****** CJ2a. Took me out to the middle of a big field, put it in 4-low, 3rd gear, gave it a little hand throttle and told me to let the clutch out. As the day went on I graduated to 2-high and the foot feed. Wish we still had that Jeep.
However, 'Signal 30' type films are likely banned as politically incorrect today.
Burning Brakes
Joined: Mar 2012
Posts: 1,200
Likes: 1
From: Belle River Ontario
2015 C3 of Year Finalist
My first car and the one I learned to drive with was a 1978 Lincoln Continental !
I looked mighty fly rolling into the school parking lot then proceeding to take 45 minutes to get the car that seemed 87 feet long into a parking spot !!!
I looked mighty fly rolling into the school parking lot then proceeding to take 45 minutes to get the car that seemed 87 feet long into a parking spot !!!
Burning Brakes
Joined: Dec 2013
Posts: 997
Likes: 210
From: Schaumburg IL
Understand completely my first car was an early 80's Suburban, took a long time to park but I was able to transport plenty of friends up to 12 one day.
Drifting
Joined: Sep 2010
Posts: 1,412
Likes: 50
From: Laguna Niguel California
At the other end of the learning curve . . . When my son took his driving test many years ago in the Vette it had the blown L82 motor. When the examiner came out to the car, he exclaimed " you're either a damned fool or you're damned good". He passed the test.
Terrorizing Orange Cones
Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 2,572
Likes: 17
From: Northern CO
