I think I'm getting old

[Specially Cork]

Null is the new Off Topic.

[Juan]

And Off-Topic is the new Mac, Linux and BSD forum. Except there's no Mac, Linux or BSD.

[Jeeba Jabba]

I still can't drive. I have a summer birthday, so I was the last person in my year to become old enough to drive - so I missed out on car-ownership status anyway. Once the novelty wore off all my friends started complaining about how 100% of their part-time job money went into road tax, gas, and crippling 17-year-old insurance. I figured university wasn't far off so just gave up on the whole idea.

While I don't regret my decision, it makes me feel like a tard.

I'm in the same boat, though me not being able to drive is more because nobody wants to teach me and driving school here is pretty expensive.

If you actually need someone to teach you how to operate a modern automobile with an automatic transmission, you're fucking retarded.


I didn't have the urge to drive during highschool, mainly because I didn't want to work AND go to school. I just wanted to game. I got my license and first vehicle at 18. All of my money went to gas and insurance (never had a car note; am somewhat intelligent and don't buy new cars). I can't understand how, by that age, some of you weren't fucking ecstatic to be able to run free, wherever the fuck you wanted to go. Darc never had the urge, but that was because I had a vehicle and he was in it every day. My first year of driving was filled with long drives to absolutely nowhere just about every single day.

And you got to be the guy with a car, so that meant girls who didn't own cars got to get into your car. This sometimes involves blowjobs from people who don't have a penis, but a vagina instead.

[Luriden]

I still can't drive. I have a summer birthday, so I was the last person in my year to become old enough to drive - so I missed out on car-ownership status anyway. Once the novelty wore off all my friends started complaining about how 100% of their part-time job money went into road tax, gas, and crippling 17-year-old insurance. I figured university wasn't far off so just gave up on the whole idea.

While I don't regret my decision, it makes me feel like a tard.

I'm in the same boat, though me not being able to drive is more because nobody wants to teach me and driving school here is pretty expensive.

If you actually need someone to teach you how to operate a modern automobile with an automatic transmission, you're fucking retarded.


I didn't have the urge to drive during highschool, mainly because I didn't want to work AND go to school. I just wanted to game. I got my license and first vehicle at 18. All of my money went to gas and insurance (never had a car note; am somewhat intelligent and don't buy new cars). I can't understand how, by that age, some of you weren't fucking ecstatic to be able to run free, wherever the fuck you wanted to go. Darc never had the urge, but that was because I had a vehicle and he was in it every day. My first year of driving was filled with long drives to absolutely nowhere just about every single day.

And you got to be the guy with a car, so that meant girls who didn't own cars got to get into your car. This sometimes involves blowjobs from people who don't have a penis, but a vagina instead.

Strange. I've never known a single person to ever just hop in a car and teach themselves with nobody in the passenger seat to even give suggestions while you get used to the steering and the pressure applied for the gas. This is a first. Not to mention it's illegal to drive in traffic without a passenger with a license when you don't have one of your own. Not worth the risk in case I get pulled over.

[Jeeba Jabba]

I still can't drive. I have a summer birthday, so I was the last person in my year to become old enough to drive - so I missed out on car-ownership status anyway. Once the novelty wore off all my friends started complaining about how 100% of their part-time job money went into road tax, gas, and crippling 17-year-old insurance. I figured university wasn't far off so just gave up on the whole idea.

While I don't regret my decision, it makes me feel like a tard.

I'm in the same boat, though me not being able to drive is more because nobody wants to teach me and driving school here is pretty expensive.

If you actually need someone to teach you how to operate a modern automobile with an automatic transmission, you're fucking retarded.


I didn't have the urge to drive during highschool, mainly because I didn't want to work AND go to school. I just wanted to game. I got my license and first vehicle at 18. All of my money went to gas and insurance (never had a car note; am somewhat intelligent and don't buy new cars). I can't understand how, by that age, some of you weren't fucking ecstatic to be able to run free, wherever the fuck you wanted to go. Darc never had the urge, but that was because I had a vehicle and he was in it every day. My first year of driving was filled with long drives to absolutely nowhere just about every single day.

And you got to be the guy with a car, so that meant girls who didn't own cars got to get into your car. This sometimes involves blowjobs from people who don't have a penis, but a vagina instead.

Strange. I've never known a single person to ever just hop in a car and teach themselves with nobody in the passenger seat to even give suggestions while you get used to the steering and the pressure applied for the gas. This is a first. Not to mention it's illegal to drive in traffic without a passenger with a license when you don't have one of your own. Not worth the risk in case I get pulled over.

The gear stick in the middle of the center console has a number of letters on it. P is for Park. R is for Reverse (that makes the car go backwards). N is for neutral. This means the car is not in any gear, the engine is running, and the wheels will roll due to gravity. D is for Drive, which makes the car go forward.

You'll notice a large circular object in front of you. It spins left or right. This is a steering wheel. It's for steering. Turn it right to make the vehicle turn right. Turn it left to make the vehicle turn left.

The pedal on the right makes the car go. Apply more pressure to make the car go faster.

The pedal on the left makes the car stop. Apply more pressure to make it stop shorter.


I'd suggest trying these strategies with great diligence in a friend's car in a parking lot. But, if this process still confuses you, you probably don't have any friends to begin with. So just stay home and die.

However, since you're in the USA in the 21st century, I understand if you've never ridden in an automobile before, and this could seem very much something of another world.

[mrandyk]

I have been driving since I was 10 at the oldest, driving early was about the only thing I liked about growing up on a farm. Ive never actually been in a legitimate city, its mind boggling to me that there are people out there who dont know how to drive at even 18 (besides women, cant trust them with a car).

[Specially Cork]

Unfortunately in the UK very few cars are automatic transmission, and if you take your test in one you're only licensed to drive one. I don't know if it's culture, history, or just Britain's windy roads but manual is just the way it is.

On top of that you've got a balls-hard driving test including parallel parking, 3-point turns, 60mph country lane driving, reversing round a corner and some other bollocks. The test is £62 (+£31 for theory and hazard awareness), and coming to a stop 1 inch over the white line at a set of traffic lights on red is insta-fail. Along with pretty much everything else you may do wrong.

I struggled to get those racing licenses on Gran Turismo, so I'm fucked.

[mrandyk]

Unfortunately in the UK very few cars are automatic transmission, and if you take your test in one you're only licensed to drive one. I don't know if it's culture, history, or just Britain's windy roads but manual is just the way it is.

On top of that you've got a balls-hard driving test including parallel parking, 3-point turns, 60mph country lane driving, reversing round a corner and some other bollocks. The test is £62 (+£31 for theory and hazard awareness), and coming to a stop 1 inch over the white line at a set of traffic lights on red is insta-fail. Along with pretty much everything else you may do wrong.

I struggled to get those racing licenses on Gran Turismo, so I'm fucked.

I see. I had up to 3 free attempts and comprised of driving a total of maybe 10 blocks. I just had to stop at stop signs, use my blinker, and not hit anything. While I know how to use a manual transmission, there are very few people around here that can and it is a pretty rural area where people likely grew up around manual transmissions. The idea of my 16 year old sister trying to drive just an automatic terrifies me.

[Jeeba Jabba]

Unfortunately in the UK very few cars are automatic transmission, and if you take your test in one you're only licensed to drive one. I don't know if it's culture, history, or just Britain's windy roads but manual is just the way it is.

On top of that you've got a balls-hard driving test including parallel parking, 3-point turns, 60mph country lane driving, reversing round a corner and some other bollocks. The test is £62 (+£31 for theory and hazard awareness), and coming to a stop 1 inch over the white line at a set of traffic lights on red is insta-fail. Along with pretty much everything else you may do wrong.

I struggled to get those racing licenses on Gran Turismo, so I'm fucked.

Wow. My driving test consisted of making one lap around the block, stopping for traffic signals, and using my blinker.

The first time I drove a vehicle was my grandfather's Ford F-150 at 8 years old. He used to walk every morning for exercise at the New Orleans Battlefield, and I'd tag along to ride my bike. The trail is a paved circle about a mile or so long that brings you from the American side to the British side, and often enough at the end of each visit I'd hop on his lap and drive a couple of laps around it. I now only live about 3 blocks from it but haven't been there in years.

[bizzle]

Manual for life. I have an 05 Civic Si, love it. It's British!!

[Jeeba Jabba]

I have a 1999 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo with only 78,000 miles. I'm 24 and on my 6th vehicle, because I only keep each for about a year, re-sell, break even, buy another good deal for same money (Started with $2,000 cars, now my past 2 have been $5,000 vehicles). Awesome strategy if you want to drive for free-- no note, no maintenance.

[DanteJay]

Unfortunately in the UK very few cars are automatic transmission, and if you take your test in one you're only licensed to drive one. I don't know if it's culture, history, or just Britain's windy roads but manual is just the way it is.

On top of that you've got a balls-hard driving test including parallel parking, 3-point turns, 60mph country lane driving, reversing round a corner and some other bollocks. The test is £62 (+£31 for theory and hazard awareness), and coming to a stop 1 inch over the white line at a set of traffic lights on red is insta-fail. Along with pretty much everything else you may do wrong.

I struggled to get those racing licenses on Gran Turismo, so I'm fucked.

Come get your license here for $100 bucks.

I have so much respect for the UK's driving tests. Our graduated licensing program is flawed. In theory it works, but there's so much corruption that we now have roads congested by immigrants who bought their license from crooked instructors. I'm talking the kind of people who pull out onto the road right in front of you, drive right through intersections when the lights are not operational, turn into your lane while you're there, drive 10mph below the speed limit, backup into your car because they don't look behind, turn left in at intersections when the light has already been red for 5 seconds. It's unbelievable!

I have dodged many accidents just because I'm extremely observant of my surroundings, but there's been some situations I couldn't get out of. The last one was in January, when I was stopped at a red light. Some idiot in a Lexus was driving too fast for the road conditions (it was a snow-storm out) couldn't stop in time because of all the snow and smashed into the back of my car, causing $9,700 in damages. I saw him coming from behind, but I couldn't go anywhere because I had a tall curb on my right, and a car in front and to my left. Fortunately, I left enough space between me and the car in front so I didn't hit his car from the force pushing me forward. So the guy gets out of his car and appears to be some punk ass Asian kid, but it turns out he was a year older than I was. The douche didn't even apologize or ask if I was okay. We walked up to each-other and he's like "Uh.. So do you want to swap insurance?" I almost punched him in the face.

[pixel]

Only one minor auto accident (hit a parked car while backing up — couldn't see well because of condition). Learned to drive when I was in 9th grade (~16 years old), started driving regularly six months after that. In high school, it was required I knew how to drive because my parents didn't want to drive my ass everywhere. 98% of the people I knew in high school drove everyday with their own car. It's just how things worked.

Currently, my ride is a 1993 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera S;


Makes me look like a bottom-feeding child grabber, but it still runs great. It only has ~128,000 miles and I've been driving it for six years. Now-a-days, I live within a block of work, so it sits most days. I only use it to go shopping and to visit family. I have the best minimum insurance package I could find because, if that thing blows up, I'm walking away and finding another crappy used car.

And Luriden, Null is the new meta-Null.

[Zealous zerotype]

I just wanted to add that when I went to get my license I hadn't driven a car in over 2 years. I also took it in a car I had never driven. I so managed to pass and started driving 45mins to work and back during rush hour. Also, 3 days later I drove 2 hours to Huntsville. Just like fucking drive I unno.

[melancholy]

It's probably where I grew up, but not getting a license where I live is pretty much crippling. In my hometown, public transportation doesn't exist. We used to have a single taxi for the entire county, I don't know if he's still going or not. Everyone pretty much has to drive or you aren't going anywhere. And driving courses were taught as part of school so if you passed the class at the end of the semester, you got a license. We would do practice driving 5 times throughout the semester, but there was never a driving test.

Of course, I grew up on a junkyard, so my entire life was surrounded by vehicles. Honestly, I don't know the first thing about working on a car, but I'll be damned if I don't know how to wreck them. As a kid, me and my friends would spend hours doing whatever we could to get a car to run just so we could race it on our homemade course around the yard and generally beat the shit out of it. We've caught cars on fire, rolled a few of them, wrecked some so bad that we thought someone was going to get killed. I wrecked more cars by the time I was 12 than I have my whole adult life. And we would come up with crazy games, like king of the hill, except the hill was a car hood being dragged behind a truck at 40mph. I have permanent scars on my legs from them being shredded from the metal of car hoods as I was being kicked off and thrown into the field. I've been ran over twice, once where I thought I was going to permanently lose feeling in my right leg.

Once I turned 14, I just stopped with the craziness and found different friends. Now I tell the stories of my childhood and nobody believes me because I'm a complete opposite personality now. We did some crazy shit went I was a child. Trashing cars, wrecking houses, setting stuff and people on fire. I always get asked where our parents were when this was all going on, and honestly, I don't really know. Half the time they were drunk and didn't care what we were doing.

[Specially Cork]

MEL THE REBEL

It's like I never knew you until I read your post.

[pixel]

It's probably where I grew up, but not getting a license where I live is pretty much crippling. In my hometown, public transportation doesn't exist. We used to have a single taxi for the entire county, I don't know if he's still going or not. Everyone pretty much has to drive or you aren't going anywhere. And driving courses were taught as part of school so if you passed the class at the end of the semester, you got a license. We would do practice driving 5 times throughout the semester, but there was never a driving test.

Of course, I grew up on a junkyard, so my entire life was surrounded by vehicles. Honestly, I don't know the first thing about working on a car, but I'll be damned if I don't know how to wreck them. As a kid, me and my friends would spend hours doing whatever we could to get a car to run just so we could race it on our homemade course around the yard and generally beat the shit out of it. We've caught cars on fire, rolled a few of them, wrecked some so bad that we thought someone was going to get killed. I wrecked more cars by the time I was 12 than I have my whole adult life. And we would come up with crazy games, like king of the hill, except the hill was a car hood being dragged behind a truck at 40mph. I have permanent scars on my legs from them being shredded from the metal of car hoods as I was being kicked off and thrown into the field. I've been ran over twice, once where I thought I was going to permanently lose feeling in my right leg.

Once I turned 14, I just stopped with the craziness and found different friends. Now I tell the stories of my childhood and nobody believes me because I'm a complete opposite personality now. We did some crazy shit went I was a child. Trashing cars, wrecking houses, setting stuff and people on fire. I always get asked where our parents were when this was all going on, and honestly, I don't really know. Half the time they were drunk and didn't care what we were doing.

LOL WUT.

[melancholy]

MEL THE REBEL

We weren't rebelling against anything. We were just a bunch of kids with seemingly unlimited resources to destructible stuff and no real parental authority. My weekends were spent with about 6-8 other kids finding different ways of having fun with over 20 acres of broken-down cars, scrap metal and empty fields. We had a couple of ATV's and dune buggies too. But yeah, it's not really that surprising. You put a bunch of 8-12 year olds in a junkyard and walk away for hours, of course we were going to tear shit up.

[Specially Cork]

There's also this:

[DanteJay]

There's also this:

That doesn't mean we're getting old. It means we're getting it up the bum.