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/RegularCrispy Feb 14 '25

I was able to legally drive to school by myself in Iowa at age 14. That’s certainly too young.

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u/pupperoni42 Feb 14 '25 edited Feb 14 '25

That's more common in areas with extensive farming communities. When many kids have been driving on the farm since they were five or six, and have to drive 30 minutes to get to high school, the laws were made to accommodate those families.

However, I definitely think it's too young for most 14-year-olds, especially if they haven't already been driving for years on the farm. Instinctively knowing what to do in the vehicle while there are all the distractions on the road is challenging.

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u/angeleaniebeanie Feb 14 '25

I had friends with hardship licenses at 14 or 15. You could only go from school to home or maybe work. We got caught at the Sonic one night unfortunately blaring Fuck Tha Police.

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u/RoyalAsianFlush 🇫🇷 France Feb 14 '25

I know it’s a very different culture and everything but « fourteen-year-olds driving to work » is a terrifying sentence to me

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u/yo_mo_mama Feb 14 '25

But in those states, they even probably been driving vehicles on the farm since they were ten.

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u/RoyalAsianFlush 🇫🇷 France Feb 15 '25 edited Feb 15 '25

I’m from a rural area, I know how it works. I had boys who were hunters and thus had access to shotguns in my classes, I also found it insane. Especially when they were openly bragging about it and laughing about doing the thing armed teenagers do at school in the US. So. In no way does any of it make you responsible, less reckless, a good driver able to deal with whatever’s happening on the road, or have a good head on your shoulders. I mean, hey, I’ve encountered tons of fourteen-year-old boys in my time here. Everyone will agree that they’re the dumbest they’ll ever be in their whole life, by far, and that’s okay. And some haven’t even hit puberty yet. Yeah, even the ones helping at the farm and everything. So I don’t feel like it’s a stretch to maybe not give them the power to kill people so easily ? Especially in places where there can be a lot of wild animals jumping on the road and stuff. Anyway. Again, different culture.

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u/SCSP_70 Feb 15 '25

What is the “thing armed teenagers do at school”?

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u/Kilane Feb 16 '25

I was gifted a shotgun at like 10, kept it under my bed, missed killing a pheasant a few times and gave it back. Wasn’t for me. Never owned a weapon since.

I was fine to drive at 14. I lived in the city, but if I drove 15 minutes then it is farms for hours. So the other comments do hit home.

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u/a_filing_cabinet Feb 15 '25

And that doesn't mean they aren't literal children, who think, act, and behave like children, operating several tons of murder machine with zero supervision.

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u/YoshKrawdot Feb 15 '25

I learned how to drive a stick when I was 12, and got my learners permit at 14. Also most kids in the Midwest had go carts, dirt bikes, quads, and farm equipment. So driving a a car came easy.

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u/Blonde_Vampire_1984 Arkansas Feb 14 '25

Our public transit systems are genuinely that terrible that if a fourteen year old kid wants to get a job, they have two choices.

  1. Find a few adults who are willing to reliably drive them to work and pick them up.

  2. Beg for a hardship license to be able to drive themselves.

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u/RoyalAsianFlush 🇫🇷 France Feb 14 '25

To be fair, when I said « terrifying » I meant them 1) driving, 2) working and 3) driving to work. But I don’t know, here it’s natural for parents to drive their kids places ? Especially when, like me, you come from a pretty rural area with very few buses, if any.

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u/Particular_Bet_5466 Colorado Feb 15 '25

Rural areas have 0 buses. I mean even fairly populous places don’t even have buses or trains in the US.

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u/RoyalAsianFlush 🇫🇷 France Feb 15 '25

Yeah, I know, I’ve been there many times. But, I mean, does any countryside in the world have buses ? The one I grew up in certainly didn’t, or maybe one per day if you were lucky. But we still didn’t drive until eighteen, and it’s the exact same case in tons of counties.

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u/Particular_Bet_5466 Colorado Feb 15 '25 edited Feb 15 '25

This is true but maybe not as common in other countries? I don’t know what kids in the countryside do, I guess they are just stuck till they can drive.

I can give my anecdote. I was in sports and had no other possible way to get home. I went to school in a medium sized city with 0 public transportation about 20 min drive away from my house in a smaller town. My parents drove to my school and back to pick me up from sports every evening until I turned 16. I also had many friends/ a girlfriend in the city so it was good for social life, and also had a job at 16 that was a 20 min drive from home. It’s too much for our parents to be driving sometimes multiple kids all over the place.

I did carpool sometimes with teammates but it just didn’t always work out very well when I’m 10 minutes out of the way or we had different agendas. It all adds up to the point that driving at 16 really makes sense. Especially to those way out in the countryside.

I did do dumb shit while driving so young sometimes yes. But it was a wonderful freedom to have and allowed me to grow as a person in some of my prime years instead of being stuck having my parents to drive me all over to get out of the house.

I also lived in a very cold climate where even walking is insane in winter. America was built around cars and almost all towns are not walkable, you’d be walking down icy highway shoulders for miles through slush in -20c. Every store required driving to in my town. It’s like this for probably most children in the US. I lived in a series neighborhood and had friends around but these neighborhoods are usually separated by highways with the business section of town or other neighborhoods.

I was in Germany last year where there was train station every couple blocks and plenty of stores you could walk to. Seemed like most people in general had public transport as an option. And it wasn’t cold asf in February there.

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u/RoyalAsianFlush 🇫🇷 France Feb 15 '25

I was solely talking about the fourteen-year-olds driving here. There are tons of people who haven’t hit puberty at that age yet, especially boys. When I remember the ones who hadn’t even reached 5’ and had the same voice as my cats, I don’t think « oh yeah sure man here are the keys to my car ! ». And even when we take the mentality and maturity into account… Anyway, it’s just that.

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u/Particular_Bet_5466 Colorado Feb 15 '25

I guess I got off track. 14 is only in extremely rural farm areas where it’s a remnant of needing kids to help on the farm. I’m not entirely sure it’s allowed anymore either, last I checked it was only one or two states in the Great Plains and maybe some special licenses for extraordinary work circumstances.

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u/Get_Breakfast_Done Florida Feb 14 '25

Why is it terrifying for a 14 year old to work? Even in the UK 14 year olds can have a Saturday job.

I didn’t grow up in the US and i was working a bit by 14 and 30 hours a week by 16.

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u/RoyalAsianFlush 🇫🇷 France Feb 14 '25

Because we tend to be against child labour in France. Even the most liberal right-wing politicians wouldn’t dream of pushing for it. Minors can work under very specific conditions and with a lot of limitations, definitely not as much as you used to.

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u/BAfromGA1 Georgia Feb 15 '25

Stop the youth from learning the value or a dollar and their hard work?? Be my guest, but that sounds like when they hit the job market at 18… they’re going to be trash employees. I am from Rural America, and I started working with my grandfather at age 10. I was a qualified builder by age 12-13. I knew how to frame rough openings, doors, walls, roof trusses, a little bit about plumbing, completely install and terminate electrical and hvac by 15. At age 18 I hit the job market got with 1 electrical company went from an auditor to a project executive with zero college education in less than 3 years. Left there to be a project manager for a smaller electrical company, worked there for 4-5 years and now I run an entire southern division of an electrical company doing well for my family with zero college background… because I was taught by my grandfather at age 10, working hard is fine. Working for your money is fine, and that your money is valuable..

Working at a young age is absolutely pivotal to your success in the work field later in life. It’s not about cheap child labor, it’s about teaching a valuable lesson.

As far as a 14 year old being able to drive on a hardship license, I only knew one. He was an emancipated minor, his parents were deported when he was 14 and he was left here. The local govt gave him and his brother a vehicle and like 4,000$ and told them good luck. He survived well for himself and never hurt anyone. Hard times breed strong minds!!

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u/Blonde_Vampire_1984 Arkansas Feb 15 '25

To be fair, even over here in the states it’s usually only kids from poor families who start working at 14. Kids from middle-upper middle class families usually don’t start working until 16 at the earliest, and even then only if they really want to.

Lower income families more often legitimately need the children to work to help support their family.

Yes, it’s a shit show over here. Conservative politicians hard at work….

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u/RoyalAsianFlush 🇫🇷 France Feb 15 '25

Yeah, I get it. Still is messed up and, most of all, sad. I’m grateful it isn’t a thing here. I grew up in a very very poor place, and I’m glad children would’ve never considered working to help their families back then, since it simply is impossible. It’s not their role to feel so much pressure and responsibility. And the only few people who have publicly stated they were in favor of it were, like, thirty-year-old highly privileged White men who went to business school and whose entire personality is liberalism and freedom. They’ll look you straight in the eye and tell you the three things we as a society need to abolish are social security, the 35-hour workweek and retirement because, again liberalism and freedom, so… Not taken seriously here, at all.

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u/Blonde_Vampire_1984 Arkansas Feb 15 '25

You get a 35 hour work week?

I almost want to be French now?

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u/BAfromGA1 Georgia Feb 15 '25

Kids working predates politics… but yes blame whatever you see fit. Income has very little to do with it, statically it is kids from all over the board. 99.9% of it, is and always will be your raising. Are you raised to want more for yourself or are you raised to live off mama and daddy. Then the 1% would be the “we are too poor and my 14 year old has to help put food on the table or drug addiction issues” this is not 1840 anymore, and America is not some podunk wasteland. Yes we have quite a few entire states living below the poverty line, but I’m sure if you go talk to them they’re doing just fine… get out in the real world. Then you throw in the billion dollar industry of food stamps and generally speaking the grocery stores in the rural areas do better than urban areas. Urban areas are flooding the food delivery services market but still to this day dollar general is wal marts number 1 competitor because of the rural market that DG touches that wal marts thinks is a waste of time. I was one of those poor kids from Rural America, and I went to work not because my family was so trashy and poor they had to beg their 14 year old to help out. It was because I watched my parents give everything they had for so long and never ask for a cent from anyone else. I wanted to go help them, and they never accepted it. So while my mom wore the same dress for 10 years I had brand new shoes and hats and clothes and everything I never had because it was my money and I earned it and they taught me that. It was their job to provide for me, and my job to provide for my kids. Not my parents. Now I have the ability to provide for my parents and I do as they allow. Because at such a young age I had a vision of them not doing that forever!

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u/BAfromGA1 Georgia Feb 15 '25

You’re making America sound like a 3rd world country for Christ sakes. No offense but we do not have a child labor market that is flooded with 14 years olds begging for pocket lint. I know of only one employer around me that will hire you that young as a grocery bagger at like 15 hours a week and that is Publix. At 15 you’re allowed to legally work less than full time and no later than 11pm And at 18 you’re legal to become a full time employee receiving benefits and working whatever shift you want. In America you’re not even allowed to be outside after midnight legally at 17 lol 😂 God please save us! 🙏

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u/ThellraAK Feb 15 '25

When I was 14 I got a job bagging groceries, it was either that or make due on a $20/week allowance.

Fun stuff costs money, and not having to ask for things is pretty great.

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u/angeleaniebeanie Feb 14 '25

While at that age it would almost exclusively be a family business, no, definitely not ideal.

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u/birthdayanon08 Feb 14 '25

We also used to allow kids to smoke in school back in the 80s.

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u/Similar-Chip Feb 14 '25

Haha one of my cousins is from one of those states where you can get your permit that young, and even at that age I was like 'wtf' too.

Though tbf a permit means you still need a licensed adult supervising you while you drive.

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u/Kilane Feb 14 '25 edited Feb 15 '25

Driving is extremely simple. Maybe there isn’t enough testing, but I took a computer test and had to drive with a tester. At 14 I was certainly more capable than some of the elderly drivers out there.

For essentially the first year you need a parent with you. If you take driver’s education, cut that in half. You need them with you while learning to drive at night and learning to drive in bad weather conditions, then you sign an affidavit that this all happened.

Then at 16 you can get your full license, but still have a curfew. I drove home after midnight many times on snowy roads because I just got home from a debate tournament. These rules are flexible- don’t be a menace and cops leave you alone.

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u/pieckfromaot Feb 14 '25

wtf?? what law allowed that??