First highway you drove on

[LeftyJR]

PA 28 about 20 miles NE of Pittsburgh

[Eth]

I think it was GA 20 between Hampton and McDonough, though it's possible that it could've been US 19/41 instead.  First freeway was definitely I-75 in the same area.

[deathtopumpkins]

First numbered highway would be VA 169, as I lived at the time on a no outlet side street off of it.
First interstate, I-64. Both were after I got my permit at 15.5.

[Truvelo]

The first road I drove on was right outside my house when my driving instructor came for my first lesson 17 years ago. I would assume everyone's first drive would be as a learner?

[wriddle082]

My first state or US highway was an extremely rare alternate multiplex (US 31A/41A), and my first interstate was I-24.

[1995hoo]

The first road I drove on was right outside my house when my driving instructor came for my first lesson 17 years ago. I would assume everyone's first drive would be as a learner?

In the USA that is not necessarily a valid assumption. In some states you need not take a driver ed class if you are 18 or older.

[corco]

I drove a little bit (a very little bit) on backroads for a few years before I so much as took driver's ed- I knew how to drive a stick reasonably well before I took driver's ed. In rural areas things like driver's licenses aren't such a big deal as long as you're driving where there is little other traffic near where you live and you have your grandpa with you in the front seat.

[J N Winkler]

In the USA that is not necessarily a valid assumption. In some states you need not take a driver ed class if you are 18 or older.

Do any states actually require driver education as a condition for granting a driver's license?  Kansas didn't when I was learning how to drive, and still doesn't, although there is now a logbook requirement.  Written documentation of 50 hours of supervised driving has to be shown before an instructional permit can be upgraded to a license.

In Britain driving lessons are not compulsory except for motorcycles (you have to produce a certificate indicating that you have completed compulsory basic training before you can be granted a provisional license for motorcycles).  However, even experienced drivers are advised to take at least a few lessons before taking the actual driving test, just to get advice on what the examiners will look for.

There are various kinds of faults which are not illegal or dangerous per se but which can cumulatively lead to test fails.  Probably the most commonly quoted example is "not making progress," such as driving at 40 in a rural derestricted zone where the speed limit is usually at least 60 depending on road type.  But there are many other kinds of faults--I discovered one of these when I asked my examiner questions which he thought reflected a lack of knowledge of common signing practices.

Driving examiners in most US states do not have a political mandate to limit the supply of new drivers, so there is much less of a culture of looking for reasons to fail new drivers.  However, California's driving test is actually quite similar to the British one in that the examiners in that state will fail you for what they call "overcautious" behavior, one example of which is taking too long to check that the way is clear before pulling away from a stop sign.

[golden eagle]

I can only speak for MS, but when I was first learning how to drive, driver's ed was not required. It may not even be required now. However, underage drivers who took driver's ed had lower insurance costs than those who didn't (on the parents' policy, of course). I'd like to see it mandatory, especially since it can lead to lower insurance costs.

[Dr Frankenstein]

Driver's ed is required in QC since two years ago (or something like that). The course costs around $900, and you have your learner's permit for 12 months.

Thankfully, I got my license before that, but I still had to wait 12 months since I didn't take driver's ed (those who did had their permit for 8 months; and back then it was half the price, too). They say it's to prevent reckless young drivers. Won't work, IMO.

I failed the road test many times, so I ended up having my learner's permit for about 20 months.

[Truvelo]

So am I right in saying that in some states of the US you are free to jump into a car and drive off without any supervision?

[agentsteel53]

Written documentation of 50 hours of supervised driving has to be shown before an instructional permit can be upgraded to a license.

wow.  I think I may have had about 5 hours of driving experience before being issued my license.  But, in that time, I learned how to drive stick, I learned how to get out of a significant majority of nasty situations, and Hell, I even learned how to change a flat!  

However, California's driving test is actually quite similar to the British one in that the examiners in that state will fail you for what they call "overcautious" behavior, one example of which is taking too long to check that the way is clear before pulling away from a stop sign.

well, good.  idiot drivers are idiots, and need to be assessed appropriately.

I took my test in Massachusetts.  they seem to have an unhealthy obsession with driving backwards - I recall they made me do so for about 1/8 mile, which was the longest block without cross streets that they could find.  Didn't make me parallel park.  

Due to the presence of an ambulance-and-fire-truck combination they did actually make me test on something actually important (get the fuck out of the way of the emergency vehicle) but that was of course more coincidence than anything else.  No evasive driving, no maneuvering on ice, dropping into low gear to climb or descend a hill, recovering from a spin, recognizing black ice when you hit it (or before), ditching into the right shoulder when someone has misjudged a suicide pass, or any other really useful activities...

and the written test was even more horseshit: explain, again, to me how my knowledge of the exact amount of time in jail that a drunk-driving conviction results in actually makes me a better driver???  I know not to drive drunk, as, after all, I am not an idiot - the difference between a $7600 and a $7800 fine - or the difference between 3 1/2 years and 3 3/4 years in jail - is not going to be the threshold.

so, in general, testing just makes you a feeble-minded idiot, the kind that clog up the roads to a 95% frequency across the country.  Maybe 5% of people can avoid the most common pitfalls and stay out of trouble.  The remainder are the sort of morons who thought to themselves, "I know what the speed limit is at an exempt railroad crossing, uphill both ways, in visibility of precisely 343 to 347 feet" and somehow deemed themselves competent drivers.  

Great.  Good for you.  Doesn't mean you know what to do when you are driving through black ice, crest the hill at 25mph (if you're smart enough not to be driving 60 in these conditions... I might not put such idiocy past you) and see a car stalled in your lane maybe 100 feet away ... which way are you going to steer hard to avoid this obstacle without spinning out and hitting the far shoulder, huh?  Your books never taught you that, and that is why your picture is showing up on the evening news, followed by a short clip of a highway patrolman with a grim face and a bloody spatula.

You're doing 55 on the freeway: the car two ahead of you brakes hard; the car directly in front of you slams into the back of him.  Debris flies.  Clearly the median is your only escape.  The inner lane is solid concrete; the median is muddy grass.  What direction do you swivel your steering wheel in?  When do you engage the emergency brake?  Do you even know if you are driving a front or rear-wheel drive vehicle?  When do you slam back on the gas to regain traction in your driving wheels?  Bonus points for controlling deceleration sufficiently to not rip the axles off your car.  Double bonus points for not even stalling when you're driving a stick shift vehicle.

actual real-life scenarios, but no, the driver's-ed community is far happier teaching morons how to parallel-park.  as we all know, 99% of all viscerally brutal the bubble-headed bleach-blond comes on at five road casualties occur at under 3mph, right?

It probably would have been more instructive if, just once, the tester rigged up some kind of inflatable obstacle to suddenly appear in my path while I was doing 60mph on the test course, so that I would have known how to react to real-life situations ... but no, that would be far too useful.  

Better to learn what the exact fine is, down to the nearest dollar, for parking for over two hours in a downtown, during a cleaning interval, on the left side of the street.

Better to learn that secondhand smoke is apparently illegal if you are driving in a vehicle with someone under 18 (the only question I missed on my driver's ed written exam), because knowing when not to lungfuck yourself apparently makes you less of a menace on the roads.  Shit, what's next, a thorough examination of my knowledge of the US tax code?  Precisely how irrelevant are we aiming to be?

drivers need to be judged on their ability to drive.  It seems so obvious when presented like that, but it is a distant and ephemeral fact from the perspective of the DMV, which would be happy to give you a license because you managed to drive around some static cones at 10mph, and never you mind what happens when you hit the freeway and there is a deer right there.

don't teach 'em.  just scrape 'em off the road!

I've gone 613,000 miles without an at-fault accident, through all kinds of destructively inclement conditions (US-550 Million Dollar Highway at 3mph in a whiteout blizzard at 2am, etc) and none of that was because of Driver's Ed or any other similar idiocy.  They will be the last to teach you what you actually need to know.

have fun not knowing how to drive.  have fun being the latest tragedy.  have fun being the latest idiot.

[agentsteel53]

What was your first roadtrip over 300 miles you drove, from where to where?

driving by myself?  2003.  8800 miles, from Boston to Boston by way of LA and Portland!

[roadfro]

In the USA that is not necessarily a valid assumption. In some states you need not take a driver ed class if you are 18 or older.

Do any states actually require driver education as a condition for granting a driver's license?  Kansas didn't when I was learning how to drive, and still doesn't, although there is now a logbook requirement.  Written documentation of 50 hours of supervised driving has to be shown before an instructional permit can be upgraded to a license.

As I was learning to drive 12 years ago in Nevada, anyone under age 18 was required to have taken a drivers' ed course before testing for a license. Also, the 50 hours of supervised driving requirement (with at least 10 hours at night) had just been instituted before I got my permit--although an actual log was not required, just the parent/guardian signing off that the 50 hours had been completed. Neither of these requirements apply to persons over 18, although a drivers' ed course is encouraged.

[vtk]

Unofficially, I logged several steering-from-the-shotgun-seat miles along US 40 when I was a kid, usually on the way home from church.

My first driving practice with a permit was usually on county roads in the middle of Madison County. When I saw another car, I stopped and waited for it to go by.  After turning onto a road with no identifying signage, I nearly panicked at the realization it was OH 38. 

In one of my sessions with an instructor, I was told we had to cover at least some freeway miles, so I drove I-70 from exit 85 to exit 91, staying in the right lane (with the trucks) the whole time.

Eventually I got more comfortable with freeways.  As a senior in high school, I dealt with rush hour traffic daily to attend a calculus class at OSU. This was before I-670 was finished on the west side, so the traffic was extra mean.

[1995hoo]

In the USA that is not necessarily a valid assumption. In some states you need not take a driver ed class if you are 18 or older.

Do any states actually require driver education as a condition for granting a driver's license?  Kansas didn't when I was learning how to drive, and still doesn't, although there is now a logbook requirement.  Written documentation of 50 hours of supervised driving has to be shown before an instructional permit can be upgraded to a license.

As I was learning to drive 12 years ago in Nevada, anyone under age 18 was required to have taken a drivers' ed course before testing for a license. Also, the 50 hours of supervised driving requirement (with at least 10 hours at night) had just been instituted before I got my permit--although an actual log was not required, just the parent/guardian signing off that the 50 hours had been completed. Neither of these requirements apply to persons over 18, although a drivers' ed course is encouraged.

This is how it worked in Virginia back in the late 1980s when I got my license. People over 18 who took a driver ed course got some sort of certification that they could submit to get a discount on their insurance rates, I believe. I think anyone wanting the Class M motorcycle endorsement had to take a course.

The road test was an absolute joke. Parallel parking has never been required on the Virginia test (indeed back in the 1960s when my parents got married, my (later-to-be-)mom waited until after they got married and moved to Virginia (where my father was a student) to get her driver's license because New York required you to park and Virginia didn't). I knew in advance from other people at my high school where my road test would take me and I went and scouted out the route in advance for any surprises. Only real "gotcha" was that they had you go through a trailer park that had a 15-mph speed limit, I guess because it's so easy to speed there. I used my mom's Volvo 740 sedan for the test, popped the automatic shift down to first gear so the car would force me to go slowly, and passed easily. (Our British friends may not know that in the USA, there is no restriction about having to pass the test on a manual in order to drive a manual. Given that, I figured it made sense to take it on the automatic because it was one less thing for which they could fail me. I've never owned a car with an automatic.)

The written tests I've taken (once to get my learner's permit; once in 2003 when I renewed my license....I had two moving violations in the preceding five years so I had to retake the knowledge test) didn't include anything about fines or jail time or the like the way agentsteel53 describes. In 2003 they did have a bunch of things like default speed limits in business districts and stuff like that–stuff I had forgotten and wouldn't have known had I not re-reviewed the DMV manual prior to the test just to see if they'd changed anything.


I seem to recall that on a visit to Moosonee, Ontario, in 1986 the bus driver up there said that because the roads do not connect to the rest of the North American road system, the only requirement for driving in that area is that you have a vehicle and keys. No license needed, no license plates, no registration, etc. I guess being in the middle of nowhere has its benefits.

[deathtopumpkins]

In Virginia where I got my license (which I am planning on getting changed to MA this afternoon) all high school students are required to take a full 18 week driver's ed course their sophomore year. Doesn't matter how old they are or whether or not they even intend to get their license. Then after you get a certificate stating you passed it with an A (>93%) you either took a private behind-the-wheel driving course or one through the school, and they graded you on the last day. At this time you are also required to submit a log book signed by several people verifying you drove for 45 hours in the day and 15 at night, before they give you your permit, which is simply a slip of paper. Next you have to go down to the DMV and spend a whole day waiting in line to get your actual permit, and then no less than 9 months later you can start driving unsupervised with a restricted license (though you don't get the actual hard copy one until they can schedule you a court date, as you have to go before a judge who preaches to you about how "he doesn't want to see you in his courtroom!", so it's usually a few months later). Then if you get a single ticket while under the age of 18 they confiscate your license and you have to do the whole affair over again.

So in short, no, Virginia does not allow you to just jump in a car and drive off without any supervision.

EDIT: 1995hoo, the Virginia school-run behind the wheel courses have required you to parallel park for several years now.

[Michael in Philly]

So am I right in saying that in some states of the US you are free to jump into a car and drive off without any supervision?

I hope not.  In New Jersey 30 years ago, a learner's permit was only valid in daylight and with a licensed driver in the car.  But you could - in fact I did - have your parents teach you to drive.

[1995hoo]

In Virginia where I got my license (which I am planning on getting changed to MA this afternoon) all high school students are required to take a full 18 week driver's ed course their sophomore year. Doesn't matter how old they are or whether or not they even intend to get their license. Then after you get a certificate stating you passed it with an A (>93%) you either took a private behind-the-wheel driving course or one through the school, and they graded you on the last day. At this time you are also required to submit a log book signed by several people verifying you drove for 45 hours in the day and 15 at night, before they give you your permit, which is simply a slip of paper. Next you have to go down to the DMV and spend a whole day waiting in line to get your actual permit, and then no less than 9 months later you can start driving unsupervised with a restricted license (though you don't get the actual hard copy one until they can schedule you a court date, as you have to go before a judge who preaches to you about how "he doesn't want to see you in his courtroom!", so it's usually a few months later). Then if you get a single ticket while under the age of 18 they confiscate your license and you have to do the whole affair over again.

So in short, no, Virginia does not allow you to just jump in a car and drive off without any supervision.

EDIT: 1995hoo, the Virginia school-run behind the wheel courses have required you to parallel park for several years now.

Regarding your last sentence, that may be, but as far as I know the ROAD TEST conducted by the DMV still does not require parallel parking from what I hear. It definitely didn't back in 1989. I don't know anyone who took the school-run behind-the-wheel course, but I did notice that even back then those courses did teach parallel parking (because I would see people practicing it with cones in the car park at WT Woodson in Fairfax). I took private behind-the-wheel and was not taught to parallel park; I taught myself very quickly once I went off to college.

The stuff about the restricted license is new since the 1980s. The way it worked back then for people under 18 was that you took the knowledge and vision tests and got your learner's permit (no earlier than 15 and 8 months), took behind-the-wheel and spent a certain amount of time driving with a parent or other adult over 18, then on your 16th birthday you could take the road test. You were issued a "90-day temporary" license that looked like a regular one, but you had to go to court with a parent to get your final license. Because of the number of people it wasn't a real courtroom, it was the auditorium at Fairfax High School, and basically it was one more chance for them to rail at you about the evils of drunk driving.

I did get a ticket when I was 16 (I was in an accident), but I didn't lose my license and have to re-do it all. I guess they've changed that too.

[deathtopumpkins]

I don't know anyone who took a private behind-the-wheel course (95% of people took it through the school), and I can't comment on the DMV's road test because if you get your license as a minor you never even have to take it so it's kinda a moot point.

My experience going to court to get my license was definitely in an actual courtroom though - the city's Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court to be precise.

I got a speeding ticket for 10 over the limit about a month before my 17th birthday and got a certified letter from the DMV (which in itself is stupid, considering minors are probably going to be at school during the middle of the day and NOT at home to sign for a certified letter) informing me that my license would be suspended at I think it was the end of the month and I could get it back by retaking a classroom driver's ed course. It was a bit of an exaggeration to say you have to do the whole affair over again, but it's quite a lengthy and annoying process.

[1995hoo]

I don't know anyone who took a private behind-the-wheel course (95% of people took it through the school), and I can't comment on the DMV's road test because if you get your license as a minor you never even have to take it so it's kinda a moot point.

My experience going to court to get my license was definitely in an actual courtroom though - the city's Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court to be precise.

I got a speeding ticket for 10 over the limit about a month before my 17th birthday and got a certified letter from the DMV (which in itself is stupid, considering minors are probably going to be at school during the middle of the day and NOT at home to sign for a certified letter) informing me that my license would be suspended at I think it was the end of the month and I could get it back by retaking a classroom driver's ed course. It was a bit of an exaggeration to say you have to do the whole affair over again, but it's quite a lengthy and annoying process.

The part about the courtroom surely varies by jurisdiction. I grew up here in Fairfax County and there's no way any of the facilities at the courthouse would have had room for all the teens and their parents. I wouldn't be surprised if other parts of the state do it differently.

Out of curiosity after looking at this thread I went to the DMV's website. I see they've changed the process quite a bit as to the road test: When I was getting my license, you definitely had to take the road test regardless of whether you took a behind-the-wheel class, but the DMV's site says that now the driving school administers the test. That's a major change. I took behind-the-wheel in late April of 1989 and I got my license in May on my 16th birthday, first day I was eligible to get it. (Part of my "additional driving" with my parents was on a trip to New York over spring break where they had me drive all the way up until the last service area prior to the Goethals Bridge, where we switched so my father would drive across Staten Island and in Brooklyn.)

I remember one kid was exempt from the classroom driver's ed course our sophomore year of high school because he had already turned 16 and already had his license. He was a really short kid and I think his parents had had him start school a year later because he was so small (I knew several kids whose parents did that). I recall for the rest of us there seemed to be no rhyme nor reason to how they assigned us to that class. It was a nine-week class that replaced your phys ed class for one quarter of your sophomore year. I was assigned to it during the second quarter (November to January) even though I couldn't get my license until May. I wonder if the idea was that you were assigned to it prior to when you could get your learner's permit (which for me was the end of January, about a week after the second quarter of the school year ended). Fairfax County's school system has always been obsessed with their four "grading periods" (better-known to everyone else as quarters).

[J N Winkler]

So am I right in saying that in some states of the US you are free to jump into a car and drive off without any supervision?

I am not sure there are any states like that left.  When I was learning how to drive in Kansas, the logbook requirement was about seven or eight years in the future and getting a license meant (1) passing a written test (administered at the driver's license bureau, and contrary to Jake's experience in Massachusetts, not really focused on minutiae) and (2) either passing a very simple driving test or producing a certificate of successful completion of driver's education.  The driver's license that was granted was restricted (school and job commuting only) until age 16, at which time it became an unrestricted adult license.  Strictly speaking I think the logbook requirement applies only to learner drivers who are minors (and possibly only learner drivers under the age of 16).  The logbook is also not required to be notarized and has no mechanism for independent verification.  At the time it was introduced, it was suggested that many parents would simply sign off their children without supervising them for the required number of hours.  The standard official response to that claim was that few, if any, parents would see it as being in their best interest to short-circuit their children's acquisition of good driving skills.

Before the logbook was introduced, it was very common for new drivers to take both the written test and the driving test so that they could get a restricted license (which takes parents off the hook for school commuting) instead of an instructional permit, and then to take driver's education.  This was not the route I took--I got the instructional permit at age 17, had well over 50 hours of supervised driving (not just with my parents but also with a family friend who had taught her own two children how to drive), took driver's education in high school, and got my full license by certificate.  To date the only driving test I have ever taken is in Britain.

Licensing is much less laissez-faire these days.  Most school districts in Kansas cut driver's education in the mid-2000's because it was an expensive elective with considerable private-sector competition and there has been a state-level funding crisis in public education for close to a decade now.  Because it is a farming state, it has traditionally been much easier to get a driver's license in Kansas than elsewhere, although the Kansas driving license is sufficiently well respected to be exchangeable with German driving licenses.  A great many other US states, especially ones on or near the coasts or with high populations, have graduated licensing schemes of wedding-cake complexity.  These programs have attracted considerable interest in continental Europe, where France already has a form of graduated licensing and Britain is considering importing some features of it.

My personal view is that it is so much easier to design stupid driver's education courses and driving tests than smart ones that little stock can be put in paper documentation of either.  I don't know about private-sector driving education, but the high-school driver education course I took was essentially a waste of time.  The curriculum had been pared down to the lowest common denominator and there were too many students for any appreciable amount of on-road instruction (I was taken on the road only three times in one semester, and allowed to drive only two of those times).  We spent a considerable amount of time in a mobile driving simulator which was not equipped to provide mechanical feedback and whose on-screen film footage looked to have been shot in the late 1950's or early 1960's, around the time the high school was built.  The simulator did have some film sequences demonstrating appropriate evasion maneuvers, but aside from this we had no systematic exposure to hazard perception or rally-driving technique.  As long ago as 1965, Ralph Nader observed (in Unsafe at any Speed) that the evidence for reduced crashes and fatalities from driver's education was so thin that driver's education did not deserve the insurance discounts which were then already standard (and which indeed were part of the motivation for my parents to require me to take it).

From my point of view, the curriculum has too little to say on the roadway environment.  If I were running my own driver's education course, required textbooks would include the MUTCD and the AASHTO Green Book, and students would be required to familiarize themselves with a sampling of state traffic manuals and design guides.  They would also be required to be intimately familiar with the legal doctrine of sovereign immunity so that they would not go forth in expectation that the highways would be safe for them to use everywhere and all the time.

Where rigid driving tests are concerned, not just in Britain but also in California and many Canadian provinces, I think they prompt learner drivers to pick up habits to pass the test that must subsequently be broken if they are to become good defensive drivers.  The rule of "making progress," for example, can easily prompt people to drive too fast in bad weather conditions just to avoid lollygagging.  Learner drivers in Britain are also taught the rule of "mirror-signal-maneuver" rather than set distances (in UVC jurisdictions:  100' in city traffic, 300' on the open road) during which the turn signal has to be blinking before the actual maneuver is made.  This often results in drivers signalling at the very last minute so that the signal only indicates a maneuver already in progress rather than giving advance notice of it.  Drivers are also taught not to signal when there is no-one around to see the signal, which keeps them from getting into the habit of signalling and results in signals not being given when there is someone around who could benefit from the signal but is not visible to the driver.

[corco]

Idaho's among the most liberal in terms of driving laws and even there 8 years ago there was still a process.

If you were 18 you could get a learner's permit and drive without driver's ed and supervised instruction.

You could get the permit at 14 1/2 and take a driver's ed course that required 30 hours classroom/6 hours driving/6 hours observing drivers, at which point you got a have-to-have-an-adult-in-the-front-seat permit that lasted 4 months after you finished driver's ed or your 15th birthday, whichever came later. At that point you got a restricted no-daylight license that became a full, unrestricted license at 16.

To get the license you had to take the inane written test plus a driving test. I took mine in the Idaho mountains in the winter, and the roads were bad. I got nicked for driving too close to the middle of the road on an ice-covered backroad- the driver's ed instructor said that if a plow went by I would have been hit by the plow. I replied that if a plow went by I would have moved to the edge of the road, but didn't want to on a snow packed road because the edges are slipperier. I passed.

My sister took hers in the summer and nearly failed for not going exactly the speed limit (she was going like 23 in a 25 for an extended period or something).

I'm pretty sure that's about the easiest process in the US at the moment. I understand North Dakota is really easy too- maybe somebody knows about that process.

[agentsteel53]

6 hours observing drivers

"all right, mister student, what did that one do wrong?"
"well, let's see, do you mean the missing right rear wheel?"
"nope"
"do you mean the fully automatic weapons in plain view?"
"nope"
"do you mean the human carcass he's been dragging for the last 400 feet?"
"nope"
"then I have no idea... what?"
"his left front auxiliary turn signal is cycling 10% faster than state regulations allow."

[Janko Dialnice]

The first numbered highway that I had ever driven would be either PA 347 through Dunmore, Throop and Olyphant, or US 6 (now US 6 Business) through Dickson City. This was almost 23 years ago, and my memory isn't all that great. The first freeway, and Interstate, that I have driven was definitely I-81 in the Scranton area.