How long did your dc have their drivers license before they were allowed to drive siblings around?

[saraha]

Title says it all. Just trying to see what other parents have done.

thanks!

[TexasProud]

Oldest did it immediately as he and middle son had community college classes together. And church. That is really the only place they went and I live in a small town. It would have defeated the purpose of having him get his driver’s license if I had to drive middle son. 

[Carrie12345]

Nothing set in stone here. Depends on kids and needs.

My 19yo got her license at 18 and was driving ambulances within a couple of months, so... lol.

[Wilma]

10 minutes. 😂

I had every confidence that this kid was a safe driver for that route from home to the pool.

[Storygirl]

DD19 didn't drive her siblings around, because she wasn't around -- she was either at school or at work, and when she wasn't, she was busy with homework, and I wouldn't ask her to ferry her siblings anywhere. We did have rules about not being allowed to take friends in her car in the beginning, and she had trouble remembering this. "Remembering" seems more gracious than "following this rule" but I really think she just didn't think about the rule when she would offer a friend a ride. We caught her a few times and gave her a consequence. The one time she had an accident early on, she had a friend in the car, so that was a big deal.

Back to siblings.....DS16 has had his license since June and does drive his siblings sometimes, because they are going to the same place. Or, a few times this summer, he played chauffeur when I couldn't be two places at once, and two younger siblings needed rides to work at the same time.

DS16 is a very good new driver. Unlike his siblings, he was a natural from the first day of driving lessons with his dad. He drove himself a lot this summer, to work and sports practices. So we feel more confident. When DD16 gets her license this month, I doubt we will feel as confident about her abilities to drive with others in the car.

When DS drives his siblings, we tell the kids to be quiet, not talk to him, and pretend they are not in the car, so that they will not distract him.

[LJPPKGFGSC]

My older son took over some driving duties for the younger ones almost immediately.  He also was the designated shopper for last minute items, saving my husband time on occasion. It was part of the plan. It made it worthwhile to spend the time and money teaching him to drive and having a third car.  Even four years later, now that he is in college, he is responsible for one weekly round trip for a younger sibling, with flexibility as needed.  That expectation will continue until he purchases his own vehicle.

[sassenach]

Right away

[freesia]

We even have them driving siblings with their learner's (and an adult supervising).  This is for drives they "know" and not in heavy traffic.  Our state requires 50 hours of supervised driving including night hours.  I have been pretty confident about their driving ability by that time.

[Momto6inIN]

30 seconds lol

The whole upside of kids with drivers' licenses (from my perspective as the mom) was that they get to replace me as chauffer.

[freesia]

1 minute ago, Momto6inIN said:

30 seconds lol

The whole upside of kids with drivers' licenses (from my perspective as the mom) was that they get to replace me as chauffer.

This.  It's the only reason really that it's worth the high cost of insurance in this area. 

[gardenmom5]

It varied, but for the most part, I didn't allow them to get their license until I was confident in their ability to drive.  (judged by being a passenger with them on roads and freeways.)

[MooCow]

My oldest was a legal adult first and had his own insurance. 

Dd was an adult and was on our car insurance. 

However, my older kids are 10 and 6 years older than youngest.

[Bootsie]

DS did a lot of driving the family while he had his learner's permit.  He was a safe, good, confident driver.   He had a lot of experience operating a vehicle (tractor, four-wheeler) doing work during the summers on a relative's farm.  He was also an avid cyclist so had a lot of experience being in traffic.  And his sibling was 2 1/2 years OLDER than he was (but she did not have her license) so he drove her places immediately after getting his license.

DD was 21 before she wanted to get her drivers license--the question wasn't whether we would allow her brother to drive her but whether he would agree to get in a car with her driving.  She has never been as confident of a driver as he is.  

[Riverland]

Immediately.

[cjzimmer1]

I know both of mine had siblings out with them in less than 24 hours but can't say the exact length of time.  I wouldn't have let them go for their driver's test if I wasn't comfortable with their driving. I know a friend of mine was worried about letting her son ride with my son (who'd been driving for 2 years at that point and was over 20 years old) but then she realized that he was also driving his younger siblings on the same trip and said it was ok for her son to go to.  I guess she didn't realize I trusted them enough to let them drive their siblings around.

[LuvToRead]

Right away.

[BlsdMama]

Utterly dependent on the abilities of the driver. 
 

I have a current 14yo getting her school permit. She will shuffle two sisters to mock trial. She has focus, instinct, and ability. No worries. 

[RootAnn]

Right away.

But, like others, I'm confident of their driving ability and they drove under supervised conditions before obtaining their license. 

[Tap]

Probably a year or more. But mot due to driving skills, it was due to the drama siblings caused. 
 

I never needed someone to drive my middle daughter cuz I was available and her brother was super busy. 

[livetoread]

Six months was our rule after getting license for driving anyone but us and for riding with a newly licensed friend. Son was 16 when he got his license and he was a good driver but we figured at his age he could benefit from the practice driving alone before adding anyone else. 

Edit to say it might have been three months for him to drive someone, but I know it was six months for him to ride with newly licensed friend.

Edited September 1, 2021 by livetoread

[kirstenhill]

Immediately for siblings, because it saved is a drive back and forth to a couple of activities. We waited a few months for friends, and due to graduated liscense restrictions, it was six months plus before more than one friend (two friends is our family limit currently for DD17). 

[whitestavern]

By law in our state, they have to wait six months, so that is what we did. It helped that the older was a great driver with a lot of experience (she drove to all our college tours), very responsible and, well, a female. 🙂 

[fraidycat]

Immediately. Her having her license and a car relieved the schedule crunch on DH and I. It wasn't a regular occurence, but it was handy those times that we did need her to drive her brother.

She still does, but she's a couple years out from being a newly licensed driver now, and we're a few months away from DS having his very own license. It's time to car shop again. 😐

[fraidycat]

We have a graduated driver license system here. New drivers can drive a full vehicle if occupants are immediate family. Non-immediate family is limited to one passenger for the first 6 months. 
 

This is nice as a parent, because "the law" says who can and cannot be in the vehicle. It helps both ways. We know the kids aren't piling a carload of teenagers into a vehicle with a brand new driver friend behind the wheel, either.

[Alice]

Immediately. He also drove the whole family quite a bit with his learner's. 

Our state limits how many non-sibling friends you can have in a car to only one for the first year after your license. We have allowed him to drive friends (one at a time). 

[teachermom2834]

I will admit I was hesitant. I don’t remember that we had any hard and fast rules about it but I do know I wasn’t entirely comfortable with it and I would try to avoid it. We weren’t all going to the same place at the exact same times very often and I didn’t turn over the running of the younger kids to the older kids. So it was a break only in that they took their own activities off my schedule- but they didn’t pick up slack for their siblings’ activities. 
 

Rational or irrational I just wasn’t super comfortable with it. I didn’t think the driver needed any added distraction and I didn’t think that if they were to have any kind of issue it would be made better by the yammering of their little brother or sister. 
 

So we did wait and while there wasn’t a rule about never doing it we did try to avoid or minimize it. But we are very conservative on letting out kids drive. Just because they have their license doesn’t mean they just are off. We still discuss where/when the young driver drives and we still veto routes or destinations or kids in the car or we say no based on weather or time of day. 

Mine got their licenses right on their 16th birthdays and had done plenty of driving supervised with their permits but we are just cautious with a slow and progressive unfurling of the driving privileges. So, I did minimize driving the siblings but that was part of an overall conservative approach to our teens driving.