Getting my permit today!

Daniel Moore

Daniel Moore

Joined
Jul 28, 2003
Messages
2,790
I'll be taking my permit (written) test today, and barring my failure to pass it, I should have my permit by 2:00 or so :D I'll probably only get a half-hour to drive, today's going to be pretty busy, but I can't wait to start. In 6 months I can get my license, and when I'm 17 I can drive non-family passengers. :cool:
 
NeedleRemorse said:
I'll be taking my permit (written) test today, and barring my failure to pass it, I should have my permit by 2:00 or so :D I'll probably only get a half-hour to drive, today's going to be pretty busy, but I can't wait to start. In 6 months I can get my license, and when I'm 17 I can drive non-family passengers. :cool:
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I'll tell ya what my dad told me,"Keep the shiny side up and the greasy side down."

Good luck, be careful. :cool: :D
 
No i never look at profiles, never ealised he was only 16. He's lucky he can drive a car at 16, here u have to wait untill 18. But u can drink as much beer as u want in Belgium, no legal limit.

strange, so most 18 year old kids are trained drunks when they but their first car.
 
Well, just got back from getting my permit! :cool: I got 14/15 right, (the one I got wrong was about the suspension period of your license for something or other). Too bad the weather is so horrendous right now :mad: :(
 
It's funny that so many of the questions are about what happens if you screw up, not how to drive. Wait until you get to the road test. If it's anything like in New Jersey, it's so easy that anyone could pass, even those who have never driven before. It's kinda scary.
 
Needle,

Good to hear. It has been a good birthday for you. :cool:
I got my learners permit about 40 years ago, when I was 15, then my license at 16. We could do things like that in the olden days of yore... :rolleyes:

Howie
 
Learner's at 16, license at 18- no car to practice with.

Oh well. Just hope your road test instructor isn't like my first one. This jerk, well, let's set the stage. It's about 2:00. School's letting out. The facility's on the second-busiest road in town, and you are supposed to turn left out, against 3 lanes of traffic, and get in the left lane. No problem, right? Wrong.

Said day was the worst traffic I'd ever seen. Solid. No holes to turn into, and an instructor screaming at me to turn. Yeah, right, lady. If my car were an electron, and I could go the speed of light, I MIGHT be able to make one of those holes. After about 5 minutes, I got a hole, but she'd already failed me for being "tentative". Jerk. :mad:

Took it again the next Saturday, about 10:00, and aced it-with a different instructor. Turned in 12 seconds, didn't miss a point, and grinned maniacally at the other instructor as I picked up my license. :D
 
At least your test was on an actual road. At the place I went to, they did the test in a parking lot. As long as you stopped at the stop signs, basically you passed. I know a girl who drove off after parking with the emergency brake still on, and passed the test. This is why there are kids hitting parked cars in the school parking lot.
 
Let's see if I can even remember drivers ed...

simulators that if "driven" with the e-brake down gave 100%(who didn't figure that trick out? :rolleyes: )

got 98% on my writen portion, 40% on my visual portion(17 blind spots between both eyes, and no depth perception without glasses)... and all of *5* points GIVEN to me on my driven part...

had to get my eyes checked before I could do my exam, finally did that 2yrs later and still biked everywhere for a year after... don't need em for driving according to my paperwork :rolleyes: .

got 6 points off(out of a possible 10 to pass still) on my first attempt... missed 2 right turns and my first parallel park(but you try parking a minivan between 2 small cars and get equal distances on the first try)...

my 2nd was perfect but almost gave my tester a heart attack...

he tells me to get in as close as I can, should help with lining up my spot... so as I get towards my spot I leave more or less mirror room between me and the parked cars. I knew exactly where my side was after 3yrs of driving with dad in the van(he's a courier and I'd spend from 3pm-5pm driving and him giving directions). the instructor litterally grabbed dashboard and wouldn't let me go from the spot till he got his fingernails out...

for some reason he didn't make me try a 3rd paralell park :D and the test ended about 5 blocks after that one.
 
James Muehlner said:
At least your test was on an actual road. At the place I went to, they did the test in a parking lot. As long as you stopped at the stop signs, basically you passed. I know a girl who drove off after parking with the emergency brake still on, and passed the test. This is why there are kids hitting parked cars in the school parking lot.
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Way back in my day, and out in the country where I lived, you made you way to the local police station, usually by driving your fathers car down there, went in and got the local cop and had him check you out. In my case he got in the car, said go down to the store and stop. I did that, he got out and went in to the store and picked up a newspaper and said, take me back. I did that and then he took me inside and wrote out the licence permit.

I figured that as long as nobody killed him during that trip you got a licence.
 
Congrats! :)

(and I'll tell you what I told both of my kids every time they took the car out on the highway: "If you ever decide to really put the pedal to the metal, just remember this: all that's keeping you on this planet are those four TINY contact patches where the rubber meets the road." Think about that the next time you're breezing along the Interstate at 130mph.)
 
Be real careful. I mean REAL careful. Drive like a little old lady. You'll live longer and so will the people around you. Whatever you do, DON'T drive like I did when I was your age. It's lucky I lived and even luckier that I never injured anyone. When I had my premit, I went midnight cruising in my Grandfather's station wagon and while playing chicken with my buddy in his mom's car, I wrapped it around a Eucalyptus tree. It was a real bummer because we were supposed to use that car for a cross country family vacation two days later. Then I had an '63 Olds Cutlass with a potent 330 CI aluminum V8 in it. Until I totalled it after doing gasoline burnouts and doughnuts in a parking lot. After that I had a 67 Cougar XR7 with a V8 that was a lot of fun. When it got totalled it wasn't my fault (it was parked) but it wasn't like I hadn't done enough stupid stuff in that car either. I even smashed up (totalled) the nasty Chevette I got stuck with after my divorce from my Practice Wife. The Chevette deserved it, but the girl in the Mustang didn't.

Along the way I picked up a nice collection of tickets too. Lots of tickets of all kinds. Expensive tickets. I never got Exhibition of Speed, DUI, Engaged in a Speed Contest or Wreckless Driving (the big four), although I certainly earned all at one time or another. It took me into my late late 20s to figure out that my driving behaviour was costing me lots of money (fines, car repairs, increased insurance) and was truly dangerous (luckily I never hurt anyone or was arrested). I did lots of stupid stuff and was unbelievably lucky so many times I've lost count. You might not be so lucky if you get silly in a car so take to heart when I tell you to be careful. They're 3000lb deadly weapons that can easily get away from you if you're screwing around on the street.

Good luck and congratulations on taking a big step into adulthood.

John
 
I should be able to go out for my permit soon as well, but I don't really have the time or will power right now to study for it. I don't know if my parents are up for it either.
 
James Muehlner said:
...they did the test in a parking lot.
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Where I'm from we call those drift training grounds ;) congrats NeedleRemorse on getting your permits...have as much fun driving as I did, until I lost my licence for dumb s***. Least I learnt from that and get it back in Febuary...

My cars are:
1973 Ford Mustang 351ci (nearly finished restoration, I'm selling that though)
1974 XBGT 351ci Ford Falcon (Yep the same model used in MadMax, hard to get into the US, restoring it soon and it'll have when I'm done around 500hp, maybe more)
1983 Ford Fairlane LTD (running 250hp at the rear wheels)

As you can see losing my licence gave me a chance to build up 3 cars, but it also allowed me to contemplate not being able to have a social life for 6 months. At your age it sucks major if you cant drive around...BTW local race tracks encourage young people to use the facilities and keep it off the streets, dunno if your near a track but I do know a track manager in Atlanta who has minor fast 4 cylinder nights, since most new drivers cant join the big boy toys till later on...
 
I went out with my dad a couple of times in his Saab 900 (first time was getting accustomed to the standard, I did plenty of stalling until I finally got the throttling just right). The second time was into two adjacent towns on backroads until we reached a square with much heavier traffic. No crash, no ticket, and I didn't give my dad a heart attack ;) . Last night I had gone out in our ridiculously large, American-decadence-reflecting Yukon XL, but since I'll be driving a standard I'm glad I got to practice on the Saab (which I'll probably inherit, it's 9 years old but in great shape).
 
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