Last Updated on November 24, 2025 by stlplace
I learned this from my own kid – our older daughter. She got the permit a few months ago, but she was not that motivated or interested in learning to drive. She is not the only kid in her peer group that are not that interested in learning to drive.
I know 2 boys who are a bit older than our older daughter. They are 19 and 16 respectively. They are not interested in to learn to drive either.
Case 1: another friend whose son is a college freshman at SLU (Saint Louis university), and the boy recently had 19th birthday. But he was not that interested in learning to drive until very recently – my friend (his mom) cannot drive him every day due to health issues. So, they have to resort to Ubers. This is actually something I noticed when I drove for Uber too – at least one rider, a young adult (girl) told me she is not that interested to drive on her own. I recall she mentioned once she had a car accident.
Case 2: the boy is a junior in the high school. I offered to his mom that I would teach him to drive if they are interested. But so far, my phone has not rung yet 🙂
Personally, we are okay with S8 our older daughter not learning to drive now. Because also recently, a new friend (a Ph.D. and also assistance professor at Wash U med school), told me that teen’s brains are not fully developed to handle the stress of driving, that’s one reason there are more accidents when teens drive and sometimes the accidents could be serious. Obviously, I don’t what any of that. In other words, as long as I can drive and have free time, I will continue to shuttle my older daughter around although technically she can start to learn, and age-wise she can receive a full fledge driver license as soon as she is 16 – which is a few months away.
But I would probably more stressed out when she actually hits the road – something similar to the feeling I had when she went to the Cub Creek Science Camp, a sleepaway camp in Rolla, Missouri for a week 🙂 I cannot stop checking emails for 3 days until Wednesday evening she sent us the email.