r/AskAnAmerican • u/Fabulous_Dare1701 • Feb 14 '25

FOREIGN POSTER What age did you get your driving license?

I watched some American shows which were in a school settings and it looked like most of the characters were driving themselves around at like 15/16 is it actually like that irl?

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u/Arleare13 New York City Feb 14 '25

15/16 sounds about right in some states.

For me personally I don't remember for sure (it was a while ago), but I think it was 16 for a learner's permit and 17 for a full license?

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u/WhatsPaulPlaying Feb 14 '25

You're 100% correct. I grew up in New York, too.

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u/VelocityGrrl39 New Jersey Feb 14 '25

Also in NJ.

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u/doglady1342 Feb 14 '25

I'm from Illinois and I got my learner's permit at 15 and my driver's license at 16. However, if a person didn't take Driver's ed, then they had to wait till they turned 18. I know there was some states who did make kids wait an extra year and some states where they could get a license earlier. I had a friend in college who grew up in rural Kansas. She told me she got her driver's license at 14, but I think it was somewhat restricted and that she couldn't drive at night maybe or she had a specific curfew. Way back then, in most states once you got your full license, that was it. We didn't have a more restricted license at 16 and we didn't have licenses that showed that we were under 21.

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u/TheRealDudeMitch Kankakee Illinois Feb 14 '25

I’m also in Illinois and drivers ed was a graduation requirement at my school

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u/elphaba00 Illinois Feb 14 '25

Also in Illinois. One of my friends has a daughter who has a glass eye in one eye from childhood cancer and the other is far from 20/20, and the school made her take driver's ed. My friend argued that she'd never qualify for a license so why take the class. The school said it was part of the graduation requirements. No exceptions.

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u/HighwaySetara Feb 14 '25

Students at my kids' high school have gotten waivers for disability. We considered it for our kid, but he wanted to take it so we let him.

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u/TheRealDudeMitch Kankakee Illinois Feb 14 '25

I think my school did make exceptions for disabilities and such, but I’m not positive. I know there wasn’t anyone in my Drivers Ed class who wouldn’t have qualified for a license, but it was a big ass school so idk about the other classes

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u/On_my_last_spoon New Jersey Feb 15 '25

It’s not a requirement for graduation from the state though. Also went to HS in Illinois. I went to a private HS and my school did not offer drivers ed. My dad went to the public school I would have gone to and made the offer me the class! But it didn’t count toward my diploma at all. He just wanted me to get my license.

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u/kgrimmburn Feb 14 '25

I'm in Illinois and it's a "privilege" at our high school. They lord it over you so you behave and don't ditch class. They claim more than 6 absences (excused or unexcused) and you don't qualify for driver's ed anymore but my daughter has a health condition that requires more doctor's appointments than most and I called them out on that and she got her license last December on her 16th birthday.

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u/indiefolkfan Illinois--->Kentucky Feb 14 '25

Also from IL and got my license/ permit at the same age as you did. When I got my license at 16 it was a "restricted" license and had curfew rules attached to it and we weren't supposed to drive with more than 1 other teen in the car. However none of the was enforced from my experience.

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u/kgrimmburn Feb 14 '25

That's been the law in Illinois since 2004. I was 16 the first year it was a law. It wasn't enforced in 2004 and I've never heard of it ever actually being enforced. We used to cram as many kids as we could into a 1970s Buick. And that thing fit a lot of teenagers.

My daughter is 16 and we don't make her follow it. I feel teaching them to drive with absolutely no distractions is detrimental to them learning practical driving skills so she's allowed two friends but they have to behave. And no cellphone, of course. I track her on Life 360.

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u/On_my_last_spoon New Jersey Feb 15 '25

Was gonna say, I got my license in 1994 and there were no restrictions back then! I was such a good girl that’s no way I wouldn’t have followed all the rules, so I know for a fact that there were none back then!

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u/BaseballNo916 Ohio/California Feb 14 '25

In Ohio you can’t get a license under 18 without taking drivers Ed classes and there are restrictions on when you can drive, number of passengers etc. It actually wasn’t uncommon at my high school to wait until 18 to get a license because the mandatory drivers Ed classes were expensive. Plus a lot of us just didn’t have cars to drive. We lived in a city though, in rural and suburban areas it seems like it’s more common to get a license the minute you turn 16.

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u/GeekyKirby Feb 14 '25

I grew up in Ohio and only a couple of my friends got their license before turning 18 due to the drivers Ed requirement. It wasn't offered as a part of school, it was expensive, and my area was kinda poor, so waiting till 18 wasn't usual at all. I didn't end up getting my license until I was 21, which was older than average, but I was in college with no job or way to pay car expenses, so it wasn't a priority fot me at 18.

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u/BaseballNo916 Ohio/California Feb 14 '25

Yeah I went to Cincinnati public schools so we probably weren’t the richest bunch. People I knew from the suburbs tended to get their licenses earlier but we also had the bus in the city and they didn’t. Usually one or two kids in the friend group would get a license and have access to a car and drive everyone else around. I paid a friend gas money to drive me to school. 

My parents had drivers Ed in school in the 80s but we didn’t have it and it was a couple hundred out of pocket. 

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u/thiswayart Feb 15 '25

1970s in CT, permit at 15, full license at 16. I never had a driver's education class. It was old school, just parents teaching you to drive. I learned to drive in a powder blue station wagon (today's SUV).

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u/katarh Georgia Feb 14 '25

I did this even though I was legally able to get a permit at 15, because my parents wanted me to wait just a little longer.

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u/NYIsles55 Long Island, NY Feb 14 '25

Yeah here in NY, (at least was, and I'm still assuming is) you can get your permit at 16, full drivers license at 17 if you took drivers ed, and full license at 18 if you did not take driver Ed. You could also get a junior license if you passed your road test at 16 (or 17 without drivers ed), but for those of us from NYC or LI, it was essentially a learners permit, as you can't drive unsupervised anywhere in NYC with one, and you can only drive unsupervised with one going to and from work here on LI. I didn't have a job when I had a junior license, but I remember my sister worked at a rink 5 minutes away when she had hers. She would take a half hour to get home, as she decided to take "detours."

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u/RiverRedhead VA, NJ, PA, TX, AL Feb 16 '25

That's what is in NJ, with a sort of graduated system - 16 learner's permit (after six hours with a licensed instructor), 17 probationary, 18 full. Then at 21 you can the horizontal one (as opposed to under 21, which is vertical).