Why I Won't Teach My Son To Drive

Our son will soon turn 16 and he has no interest in learning how to drive yet. I’m relieved. I don’t want to teach him how to drive, especially since I drive a stick shift. It doesn’t help that I’m not really the best role model of driving. I’m a safe driver and never text and drive, for example, but I admit I have been known to become pretty irate with a tailgater or someone who turns in front of me and makes me brake hard. I use my horn a lot.

Many media outlets have written about there being no teen car culture anymore. Most teens, my son included, prefer building friendships online rather than face-to-face. It seems to me that this generation of teens has no desire to hurry up and become adults. I see that in my own son. And maybe that’s okay.

When I was his age, I didn’t feel I had a choice. My mother wanted me to learn how to drive so I could become the after-school chauffeur for my younger siblings.

At that time, I didn’t have to worry about a graduated driver’s license program. In fact, I didn’t even take driver’s ed because I wanted to save that half of a high school credit. I didn’t pass my driver’s test the first time because I couldn’t parallel park. I lived out in the country and that was something we never needed to do. In my hometown, you could park in a space on Main Street and you just needed to know how to back up.

Very few high schools teach driver’s ed anymore. The courses are gone due to budget cuts. Most were taught by a teacher who had extra hours and did not necessarily have any special training. Now, beginning drivers can take online courses, attend driving school or be taught by their parents or guardians.

Teens between the ages of 16 and 18 must now go through their state’s graduated driver’s licensing program, usually completed in three stages: permit stage, probationary stage and fully licensed. In the permit stage, they are permitted to drive with adult supervision (over 25 and usually with a parent or guardian) and in many states must log anywhere between 30 to 50 hours of practice.

I started driving in the pasture when I was 14 and then my mom supervised my road driving maybe a few times from there. But she would never have had the time or inclination to spend 50 hours of logged practice with me and her other children.

Should parents really be the ones to teach their kids how to drive?

I lived in Germany for a number of years and if you wanted to learn how to drive (beginning at 18), you went through a six-month driving school course and learned from trained professionals who worked with you in all aspects of driving practice. No pathos, no drama, no tension…just driving.

In my experience, Germans are undoubtedly the best drivers in the world. They know how to navigate a roundabout, how to execute a zipper merge properly and can even drive their finely tuned engines over 120 KM on the Autobahn. And most importantly of all, German drivers universally practice lane courtesy – keeping right except to pass or exit. This is all due to learning how to drive the right way in a professional driver’s education course.

Now, some states mandate that parents must attend a driver’s education class before they can teach their kids. Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Northern Virginia require that parents or guardians take a two-hour class about the rules and restrictions their teen drivers will face before they can get a license. In Texas, and probably a number of other states, a parent has to declare to the state that they will be the one teaching their kid how to drive.

Why do I feel like a huge rock is on top of me? All these regulations and mandates suck the fun right out of learning how to drive for everyone involved.

Driving, of course, is a learned skill and an important one. It is one of those basic skills every child should learn such as typing. But with all the hoops one has to jump through now, is it any wonder many teens have little interest in learning how to drive?

I will not teach my son how to drive. I’ll leave that to the professionals, when he’s ready of course.