Licensed and Legal

Way back when I got my license (Logan, Utah, circa 1986), as long as you had taken driver's ed and driven for a few hours (5?) with the instructor, you could show up on your 16th birthday, take the test, and drive away fully licensed. Wooo-hoooo!

My best friend Debbie took me to a drive-thru right after she got her license. We jerkily pulled up fully perpendicular to the ordering menu at McDonald's and yelled our orders, followed by a jumpy 235-point turn to get oriented the right direction, giggling all the way. Yeah. Maybe we weren't completely ready to be on the roads solo. It was more of an on-the-road-experience proposition.

Flash forward a couple of decades and across the country. The earliest you can get your license here is at 16 1/2, after six months of supervised driving with a permit, 18 hours of instructor hours (12 driving, 6 observing), 40 hours of parent supervised driving. On busy, intense Massachusetts roads with impatient, hair-trigger-horn-honking fellow drivers. And navigating crazy free-for-alls round-a-bouts to boot! 

She's ready, skilled, licensed, and legal.*  Let freedom ring!

Next challenge: learn to drive on the OTHER side of the road in Australia. Wheeee!

. . .

*Even now that she's licensed, she can't drive non-family members under 18 without someone over 21 in the car, too, for six more months. It definitely puts a damper on dating around here but Massachusetts is serious about new driver safety, y'all. So she STILL can't pick up her best friend and go to McDonald's drive-thru for another 6 months... 

Comments

[Christie]

I failed my driver's test the first time (and rightly so). I was NOWHERE near ready to drive and had many experiences similar to your McDonald's with your BFF, only in a totally uncool station wagon. I'm so glad the restrictions here are similar to yours there. I'm frightened thinking of my kids on the road.

But, oh! Congratulations, Maddy! You'll be great! :-)

[Rochelle]

Wow. After driving for 35 years, I still wouldn't drive in Boston. Yeah Maddy!