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I asked my dad for a car when I was 16. He said sure thing. Just get a job so you can buy it and afford to drive it. So I did. I'd work during the summer and buy a beater in the fall. He paid for the first six months of insurance. After, it was too expensive due to accidents and tickets, so I drove without. It worked out for me until I graduated from high school and joined the Marine Corps. After that, I was able to buy a new car and pay for insurance and upkeep on my own. But that was a long time ago. And then, on top of all that, I had to pay my own way through college. At least I had the GI Bill to help me with that. Kids today don't realize how easy they have it.
My oldest daughter, who is 17, will be a HS senior starting in a few weeks. She is a straight A student and takes college classes as well. She is not working yet, but helps in the house.
She hasn't gotten her drivers license yet, but should in September.
We live less than a mile from her school. There is no bus service, no sidewalks and she has to cross a busy road with no crosswalks. Which is why we have driven her for the past three years.
My wife (stay-at-home mom plus teaches my youngest at home) really wants me to get my daughter a car. Since at the moment my daughter is not working and may not the entire senior year, I'm balking at buying a car. My daughter works hard on her studies, so when she is at home, she is mostly studying. She would only need a car to drive the 2 mile round trip to school and back and occasionally meeting up with friends (who have cars but live farther away).
So besides a limited need for a car, I don't see a reason to pay higher insurance which in my area would be over $180 a month just for a car that needs liability. Not including I will have to buy her a car. The car will be sitting in our driveway or parking lot over 90% of the time.
My thinking is to continue to drive her to school for now (or let a friend pick her up) and let her drive one of our two cars when we are not using them. Normally there is always a car available - one car is a minivan. Then towards the end of HS, I will get her a car, then right after HS she can get a part-time job before college and help pay some of the insurance costs. (She is planning on going to a local college to finish up her associates degree first).
My daughter actually agrees with my side. My wife is the one giving me grief. I don't see a reason to have 3 cars right now.
she would probably be safer walking on the 'no' sidewalk and crossing the busy street than actually driving at a young age. there are a LOT of distractions these days for young people, radios, cellphones and whatnut.
i don't want to get into your personal business, but what's with the wife not working? tell her to go out and get a job and start bringing in some income.
If the kid hasn't mastered the techniques necessary to navigate a mile to school and cross a busy road on foot why would anyone be in a hurry to get her behind the wheel to do the same things?
I don't know how people get by with 2 cars. If one breaks, you have to then depend on other people for a ride which I never want to burden anyone with my issues. So, since I was 19 I have always kept a spare car. Now an adult with children of my own, I have 3 cars (one for wife, one for me, one spare) so when my oldest gets her license she immediately has a vehicle at her disposal.
The OP stated that a friend can give the daughter a ride to school. Why put a burden on someone else because you don't want to spend money on a car? Insurance isn't that much and you can pick up a used Corolla or something for under 4k to just tool around with. Heck you can get something decent for under a grand. Those late 90's Camry or Accords go forever.
I went the other way......kid was 15 and I bought her a brand new manual transmission car. My thought process was to give her as much seat time as possible (with a learner's permit for 1 year) in a car that she is going to be driving so that when she is 16 and able to drive alone she might have 10,000 miles of experience already under her belt.
The thoughts behind manual tranny car:
1. Life skill- if you can drive this, you can drive anything!
2. Keeps the concentration on the activity at hand (driving)- not texting, eating, etc.
3. Keeps other kids out of the car.....they can't drive stick then they won't be looking to borrow the car!
I am going to disagree with the majority and say that if you can afford the car, insurance and maintenance of another care get it. If you really can't afford it I agree that you can live without it but if you can afford it getting the car will make life easier on your wife.
I was in a similar situation where my kids went to school about a mile away but walking was not really practical. The kids needed to be at school at 7:30 so they would have to leave when it was dark. There are no sidewalks for most of the route they needed to follow. One of the roads they would have to walk on and cross is a six lane divided highway. Plus-in my area there are large storms nearly every afternoon from mid April-October so for much of the year I would need to pick them up even if they walked to school. The kids had different schedules. The oldest played HS football, middle was in marching band, and youngest played youth football so they all had to be in different places at different times.
Getting the oldest a car really helped with the logistics of getting everyone where they needed to be. It gave me one more person to help shuttle the kids around and gave us more family time as a result.
This is my perspective. We did not get our kids fancy cars. The oldest is 22 and is still driving his Scion xB. When my middle (now 20) started driving we gave him our old Yukon XL and I got a new car. When our youngest started driving we got him a Ford Fiesta.
We've had several kids killed along busy streets while walking to school. This was in San Antonio tx. Too dangerous.
Same thing here in Florida especially when they change the clocks in November. It doesn't get light until around 7:30 and we have kids walking or riding their bikes to school in the dark. It's time to get rid of Daylight Saving Time but that is another topic for another day.
At 17 I had to carry 6 large textbooks and 6 large notebooks, plus my band instrument, music, and gym clothes back and forth to school every day. And a large water bottle because the water fountains were pretty gross. It was at least 40 pounds. Walking a mile with all that crap is going to be damaging for your back until you have trained and worked your way up to it.
I can't speak for the OP, but my high schoolers have very few textbooks because the district can't afford to buy them.
My thought was parking...parking at many high schools is limited. At our school, you have to buy a permit to park in the main lot. Most kids park in the surrounding neighborhood and still have to walk a bit. Something for the OP to factor in.
I mean, jeez, when my daughter could drive, it was suddenly as if I had three extra hours in my day. Suddenly, I didn't have to drive kids all over hell's half-acre after school. Instead, I could cram in another two hours of productivity that day rather than waiting until after dinner.
So maybe the man's wife would like to have that.
This. When we bought our oldest a car we told him that we were paying for his car expenses and we expected him to pay his share of the car by helping us out by driving his brothers around or helping me run errands. The same went for the middle child.
Our life just became so much calmer and less frantic when there was another person to help get everyone where they needed to be. I had time to cook healthy dinners and not be scrambling around to put everything together quickly. I had time to run errands mid week and free up our weekends for family stuff. I was able to take the burden off my husband who works long hours running his law practice because I didn't need him to fill in the stuff I couldn't do just because I was driving everyone everywhere.
It is certainly a luxury to have a teen with a car but I don't see it as a waste. It isn't something that people absolutely have to have but it is nice.
I went the other way......kid was 15 and I bought her a brand new manual transmission car. My thought process was to give her as much seat time as possible (with a learner's permit for 1 year) in a car that she is going to be driving so that when she is 16 and able to drive alone she might have 10,000 miles of experience already under her belt.
The thoughts behind manual tranny car:
1. Life skill- if you can drive this, you can drive anything!
2. Keeps the concentration on the activity at hand (driving)- not texting, eating, etc.
3. Keeps other kids out of the car.....they can't drive stick then they won't be looking to borrow the car!
Oh heck yes. I personally prefer manual. I made sure my wife learned back when we were dating. I will make sure both my daughters learn on a manual as well.
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