But in America, the driving thing is so necesary in 90% of the country, and a whole mythology has grown around it, which I find, um, eye-rolly.

This is what the boy says. He finds the lack of cars and general acceptance of public transport to be the hardest thing to adapt to.

I think the drinking age should be 16, and the driving age should be 21.

In one of my other moods, I think everyone should have to be 30 to do almost everything.

To my mom, getting a license was No Big Deal, because she grew up on a farm. But then, she had been driving the tractors, and occasionally the car, since she was heavy enough to put in the tractor's clutch (that was how my grandfather deemed you old enough to drive. ) She was 9, and had to jump off the seat onto the clutch with both feet, but she could drive that damned thing (she's only 5'2" and slender now, and she was small then too.)

I would rather live somewhere where driving was less necesary. It's getting slightly more possible. If I had a job downtown and a bike, I would only use the car for shopping. The rail line has made not driving, at least in south and central Dallas a little more possible- except for of course now, when its 110 outside.

She was 9, and had to jump off the seat onto the clutch with both feet, but she could drive that damned thing

Wow. I think I was 10 or 11 or so before I started driving tractors. (I was average height for a boy back then, believe it or not.)

If I didn't have a driver's license when I was 16 (and I had to wait 3 months after my birthday to get it, since I was taking driver's ed when I turned 16), I would have had very few options to get to school, and work would have been right out of the question. My parents were divorced (Dad lived on the other side of town), Mom worked, brother was in college in MN, and sister had her own job/friends/things to do other than ferry me around town. Since the bus system back then (early '80s) between Joliet and Shorewood really sucked (two buses going to Joliet in the morning and two coming back in late afternoon, and that was it), driving was the only option.

I did get in an accident that first year (pulled out onto a busy road without looking to see if anyone was coming--got my front bumper torn off) and also drove into three-foot high water (2:00 am, street lights were out, couldn't see that the road was flooded) so I had to wait for the engine to dry off before I could finish bringing my play castmates home, but other than that, my dumb driving moments were relatively minor.

I have moods where I want to require passing a maturity test before anyone can do much of anything "adult."

When I was 16 and driving, my parents were waiting for the day that they would get the phone call that I was dead or had killed someone because I was such a jackhole driver.

The only call they got was when I flipped a minivan with my car pulling out of a gas station and not paying attention to the oncoming traffic to my left.

I think the relative price of driving is part of the reason for the differences, too. Cars are pretty expensive here, but insurance is even moreso, especially if you're under 25. I know one 19 year old boy who paid two and a half thousand euro to insure his one thousand euro car. Petrol prices make a difference too. The boy was pretty shocked at the price of petrol here when we rented a car a few weeks ago.

I don't think that the necessity of having to drive, often sooner rather than later, due to the lack of consistant public transportation and the low priority to provide same in most of the US is eye-rolly; just the whole car thing in our culture. It's a tool. It gets me from Point A to Point B. It is not an extention of my personality, a validation of my financial sucess, or a valid excuse to authorize my government to support my driving cheaply by any and all means.

When in Europe, the thing I loved the most was not needing a car to get to practically anywhere on the continent. I came home determined I would never own a car. I did, of course, end up needing to own several, and the stress and anxiety it caused in me was legion. I'm profoundly grateful and lucky that I don't need a car to get to work or to do many of my daily necessary errands, I can walk easily or take public transportation. But still, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't relieved we have the old crappy reliable Escort to go to Target, grocery shopping, the farm, visit my parents, etc.

Anyway.