found out DSD is driving illegally

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-28-1999
found out DSD is driving illegally
17
Sat, 05-26-2007 - 4:53pm

My DSD reported to me today that she has seen DSD driving w/ friends in the car which is illegal because she hasn't had her license for 6 mos yet. My DH would just have a fit and take away all access to the car if he knew this. I wish I didn't even know this info. I don't want to rat her out because I know my DD did this too, even though I didn't catch her. If I had, I would have taken away the car for a while. She admitted later that she had done it, but by that time, she had her own car.

I always felt that the punishment if she got caught, a 30-day license susp. for the first offense, would be worse than anything I could do. Of course, the police can't stop just for that, so you would really only get caught if you were in an accident or made some other violation, like going through a red light. They have changed the law now and I think it's a 60 day susp. for the 1st offense.

This is the same girl who somehow broke the tires and tailpipe of the car when she had it in her possession, but it amazingly happened while she was sleeping and just came out in the a.m. and everything was broken. yeah, right! another case of parents being stupid. That burns me up since we just had to spend almost $900 to fix all of that. Obviously, this girl is not trustworthy enough to have the car. Her dad will just give it to her for a whole day w/o even knowing where she is going, which isn't like him at all. Usually, he's very controlling of everything. When my DD first got her license, she could only take the car to a specific event and I would have a pretty good idea of when she would be home, such as a basketball game at school or the movies. None of this all day stuff.

Sometimes it's better to be in the dark, esp. when it's not your own kid!

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Avatar for weberdns0
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-25-2000
Wed, 05-30-2007 - 7:17am
I agree, but you would be surprised at the number of parents who disagree with the law and permit their children to break it as they won't get caught and it is a stupid law anyhow.
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-28-1999
Wed, 05-30-2007 - 10:53am
I was also surprised at the number of parents who allowed their child to break the law. I don't know what kind of message that gives to kids. My DD asked me about driving w/ other kids who might not have their license for 6 mos. yet. I told her that I had enough to do w/ supervising her and I could not keep track of who got their license when. I did tell her that I thought it was unfair of her if she drove w/ someone and they weren't supposed to have someone in the car because then she was letting them break the law. I don't think it would be fair to ticket the passenger because they might not know when the kid got their license since not everyone gets it right away. My DSD has a friend who took the classroom part of the driver's training w/ her, but she hasn't taken any of the road lessons yet because she is actually afraid to drive.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 05-30-2007 - 11:14am

<< I don't think it would be fair to ticket the passenger because they might not know when the kid got their license since not everyone gets it right away.>>

Good point!

The 'open lunch' thing is crazy. We moved here 5 yrs ago and, while I love the town, I have some issues with the schools and this is one. Unfortunately, even if they repealed the decision, there simply isnt enough cafeteria room to serve the current population so we are stuck

Lots of kids dont come back after lunch; lots of kids roam the surrounding neighborhoods and, at the least, toss their trash.

The 'ride' thing is huge. There are cops sitting there every lunch hour but no attempt is made to flag down these drivers. Even if they had signs on their windows identifying them as new drivers, another IL proposal, I dont think they could touch the abuse of that law during the lunch hour.

My middle ground was to work on keeping my son from taking passengers in the car during any evening jaunts. I didnt feel I had the resources to take on the lunchtime issues

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-01-2003
Fri, 06-01-2007 - 4:08pm
Hi. I definitely understand how you must be feeling. My dd just got her license two months ago and we have repeatedly warned our dd NOT to drive any friends until the six months is up. In CT you can't drive anyone except a parent for the first 3 months and for the next three months you can only drive one sibling. But from what I hear around town is that a lot of kids don't pay attention to this rule and drive passengers anyway. This totally freaks me out and I told my dd if she gets caught doing this, she will lose her driving privileges at least until her six months is up. Besides having points against your license if you get caught, the insurance rates will skyrocket, but I am VERY worried if she drove a passenger and then got in an accident and they got hurt...guess who would get sued for driving illegally? Us! I told her repeatedly that she can't take that chance and would lose her driving privileges as a result. My advice, take the car away from her for a while and have a LONG talk with her.
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-01-2003
Fri, 06-01-2007 - 4:17pm
I have to honest and say that I think that this law is stupid too. For one reason, I read that kids are now driving passengers in the trunk! So in order to get around this law, kids are putting themselves in even more danger. I've even heard a couple of cops say that they think it's a dumb law too. But for now it's the law so I will keep telling my dd to not drive passengers.
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-01-2003
Mon, 06-04-2007 - 5:38pm

I thought your reply was very interesting. My dd just got her license a couple of months ago and I can't believe how many kids in her class drive passengers w/o being legally allowed to do so. My dd knows a boy in school who sometimes hangs out with her group and I found out one night that he was driving and he doesn't even have his permit! I thought it was bad enough that kids who had their license were driving passengers before they were allowed to or driving around with just a permit, but driving w/o a PERMIT, OMG!!! Fortunately, the whole episode freaked my dd out and she wouldn't get in the car with him, but all the other friends did. I'm sure not one parent knew and even thought to ask if he had his license/permit yet. All I could think...what if he got in an accident and someone got hurt or killed! My daughter even thinks that the mom knows and allows it since she doesn't have to worry about driving him around.

Every time I think I've heard it all...I hear something new to shock me.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-17-2005
Mon, 06-04-2007 - 6:09pm

I agree with you in this one.

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