As fzkdnahyed
the mom of two teens and one 1998 Oldsmobile, I appreciate this car-safety think piece, sent to us by Kari Oakes. Kari is a physician assistant, medical writer, and the mother of two teens, too. She’s also an executive board member of the nonprofit Start School Later.
Parents of Teens: You’re Not Worrying Enough!
My friend’s FB status last night featured this story, with the comment “Something else to worry about….” The headline? That Cheap Old Car May Carry Deadly Cost for Teens. She and her husband are buying a new car with plans to pass their older-but-serviceable wagon on to their newly minted teen driver. Should they? Shouldn’t they? Agh!
Turns out, it depends. This is a hyperbolic headline for what’s actually a pretty solid piece of reporting. The author, a health and science writer, reports on a study that compared the vehicles of teenaged drivers who die in car crashes (I know, it’s horrible even to type that phrase) with the cars of older drivers in fatal crashes.
They found that almost half of the teen drivers in these fatal crashes were driving a car 11 years old or older, and that the teen victims were almost twice as likely as the older drivers to be in an older car.
BUT here’s what got buried: “What the researchers don’t know is what percentage of teens drive older vehicles. So they can’t say that the data prove that older vehicles are increasing the risk of death in teenagers (irate emphasis mine).”
If, say, 80% of ALL teen drivers are driving cars 11 or more years old, and only 48% of fatal teen crashes occurred in those older cars, that would mean the older cars are SAFER than newer ones. We just don’t know from this study. But that, of course, doesn’t make a good headline. It doesn’t make our guts churn with worry and guilt.
Like Lenore, I’m all for safety. Helmets on bikes, seatbelts in cars. Airbags save lives, too, and probably none of us should be riding in cars without them, unless we’re sitting in the back of a vintage Caddy for the 4th of July parade.
Luckily, the US has required airbags in all cars sold in the US since 1998. Your choices are ample, here’s a link to recommendations for various price points. As parents of new drivers, we can set reasonable limits on the where, when, and with whom of the driving equation, too.
This is all part of the common sense parenting of kids who are getting ready to fledge, and we parents of teens need all the common sense we can muster. What we can do without is yet another ginned-up item for worry, so read past the crazy-making headline and buy your kid that old Volvo, already! – Kari Oakes
110 Comments
We recently covered car accident causes as a safety topic at work. 93% of accidents are at least partly caused by driver error. Over 25% though were caused by a problem with the car (bad brakes, loose steering, bald tires) and driver error in responding to the defect. I expect less experienced drivers don’t respond as well to car defects, so there is at least a plausible mechanism.
The solution isn’t new cars though. It’s rigorous maintenance and repair, which holds true for everyone.
Again, it’s the common attitude that things that were acceptable (state of the art even) when we were driving are now totally terrible death traps. Amazing how quickly we’ve forgotten how relatively reasonable and safe our own childhoods were.
I’ll give you some reasons why teens SHOULD drive older cars (from someone who passed their test in 1995 and drove a 1972 VW Beetle which they still own today)
1. Old cars accelerate slower and have a lower top speed, which is perfect for new drivers to learn road craft at a more appropriate pace.
2. Old cars brake slower which sounds like a bad thing, but there’s nothing like drum brakes to teach you to plan ahead for junctions!!
3. Old cars aren’t as tech driven meaning that teens can get their hands dirty and learn how to fix their car without plugging in a computer to do it for them.
My children will all have an old car when they pass their tests!
My first car was almost identical to the Griswold Family Truckster with it’s wood paneling and was at least a decade old and most embarrassing to drive but it got me where I needed to go. I had to pay my own car insurance and learn how to change a tire, check fluids, and basic car mechanics before I was even allowed on the road. In contrast, my best friend got a brand new convertible mustang that she crashed and totaled twice in the first year.
For my kids, I will also make them pay car insurance and learn basic car mechanics and maintenance before they have the privilege to drive. And they most definitely will not have a new car! I don’t even have a new car, they’re a waste of money. As parents, we try to model good driving behavior by not talking on cell phones or texting while driving, minimize distractions in the car, and drive defensively.
A *safe* car is only as safe as the driver that drives it.
When my kids become drivers, I will be less concerned with WHAT they drive but HOW they drive.
Our “new” car is 11 years old and has 169,000 miles on it. We take it to the mechanic regularly and it runs nicely. It has seat belts and air bags, and a LATCH system for the car seats. I can’t say as I’ve ever thought of it as a death trap.
Classic case of ‘headline not interrogating statistics’ again!
Was the original article written by the auto industry, trying to sell new cars to panicked parents?
If you are talking about the family’s used and top-heavy SUV, then yes. Can’t put stats behind it, but my kid won’t have a SUV.
Goodness, how many teenagers and their families wealthy enough to purchase or provide their teenage son or daughter with a new car to drive and maintain? Even most families I know who are well off and make a good living provide their teen kids with the hand-me-downs to drive. So I think this study is somewhat skewed.
This has nothing to do with the age of a vehicle. It has everything to do with how the vehicle is maintained. Period.
And Natasha, I don’t know where you get your information from, but pretty much every car I owned that was “older”, as in not fuel injected, but carb instead all had much more power, and accelerated better than any of the newer vehciles.
You cannot make blanket statements about vehicles as to braking and acceleration, as it has nothing to do with age whatsoever. It has everything to do with size of engine, type of fuel delivery, size and weight of vehicle. Our old 77 Buick had a 350 cubic inch engine, with a 4 barrel carb. Off the line it would smoke any of the vehicles in the same class built post 2000. And it was a 4 door, family sedan.
1990 Pontiac Bonneville SSE, was a 4 door family sedan, with a 3.8L V6, and was a hotrod off the line, and a bullet on the highway.
Please do not comment on things you know very little about.
When my kids learn to drive, they will have a car with one safety device that I will do myself. It will NOT have a working radio. I probably won’t allow passengers for a good while either. Teens tend to mostly get into accidents because they are distracted. No stereo or passengers….fewer distractions.
I WISH I had a car newer than 11 years old! My newest was built in 1995, and has a driver airbag only, and antilock brakes. My other vehicles….are 91, 85, 75, 68 and 55. And the kids and their dad are working on restoring a 52 Studebaker which will have disk brakes and probably a collapsible steering wheel. Oh, and lap belts in the front AND back seats.
We will also spend time learning how to drive on snow and ice – in a large empty parking lot. Both with antilock all wheel drive and rear wheel drive.
@Crazy, Limiting passengers I can get behind, but the whole stereo thing is a little over the top.
Again, if you have brought them up right, and they are responsible, they will turn out to be responsible drivers.
Warren, actually….we only have two vehicles with radios. My 95 mini van and my husband’s 85 suburban. As I am currently paying for insurance on 6 vehicles with two drivers, I think my daughter next year will get one that does not have the radio. She also won’t be distracted by adjusting the AC as only one vehicle has that…mine. 🙂
But really, anything to reduce distraction is a good thing. Radios are optional. (And notice I didn’t say stereo…we don’t even have that in our vehicles as the back speakers don’t work!)
(And the six cars for two drivers…you could say my husband is the Crazy Car Guy. But he does a great job of maintaining our older vehicles and we still pay less than if we had loans and full insurance on new vehicles.)
My first car was a 1982 Ford EXP, 2 doors, sunroof and a five speed. It was 11 years old when I bought it, I paid $50 for it. I learned a lot from that car and the old cars I had after it. Now if I breakdown I generally know what is wrong. I still drive older cars. Even if I buy them fairly new I keep them for a long time so it isn’t very likely my kids will drive new cars. I own an 05 Montana van and an 06 G6 gtp hardtop convertible. I will likely still have them both when my oldest turns 16 in 4 years so guess what she will be driving.
It has to do with safety features.
Traction control, ABS, airbags, etc.
You can get these features without excessive acceleration.
I used to be a big fan of those sweet looking old cars, and then I watched the IIHS crash a 59 Bel Air into an 09 Malibu. The video was rather shocking. No more cars older than 95 for me any more.
I wonder how much crashworthiness is affected if the vehicle lived and was driven anywhere that roads are frequently salted during winter. After as few as 7 winters the body panels are basically ruined. How does the chassis fair?
I wish there were statistics, but it seems logical that a lot of teens are driving older cars. What kind of car would one want to buy for a new driver? As long as it’s safe, whatever’s cheapest!
I wonder what these people would say about one of my first cars that didn’t even have seatbelts. Or the one that my kids are chomping at the bit to drive, but will probably never drive, because it’s my basically my other child. It has no seatbelts either.
Warren, “Again, if you have brought them up right, and they are responsible, they will turn out to be responsible drivers.”
I want to hope so. But the 12 year old hot glued a desk drawer shut the other day. He also hid candy wrappers in the heater vent in the bathroom (which we found during our remodeling today.) And other boneheaded things. The older and younger will probably drive before they get to 18. That middle kid….the common sense is just not there yet. I can only hope that maturity will bring it on, because I am not advocating for him to drive at 16. I don’t care if that means that I have to drive him around several more years than I do the other two. (Or rather, they may have to drive him around!)
Yes, my daughter thinks she is going to drive the 68 Tempest or the 55 Pontiac Chieftain….both have more engine than a 16 year old girl or any guys who think they want to date her should have. Crappy mini-van with the headliner held up with wooden lath board….still is better than the 3 primer tone 66 Chevy Impala Station Wagon that I had. One, the frame is not rusted out, and two, the van is all one color!
And, for what it is worth…I still have the engine out of the 66 Impala….have carted it around half the country looking for the right vehicle to put it back into. Whatever it is…it won’t have airbags.
No surprise. A person (not just a teen) with an old but not classic (and thus cheap, unimpressive) car is likely to be less careful with it than someone with a more expensive/valuable vehicle.
If it were a hand-me-down from the parents, even more so, “they were too cheap to buy me a new BMW, I hate this piece of junk”.
Combine that with the already mentioned lower maintenance standards typically employed on old clunkers (after all, replacing those brake discs would set you back almost as much as the scrap value of the car, so why bother…) and you’ve a recipe for accidents.
And that’s true not just for inexperienced, young, drivers, but all drivers.
Of course the inexperienced driver who takes big risks is more likely to end up in situations he can’t handle than someone who’s been driving a lot for decades…
interesting, considering our insurance agent told me outright to get an older, cheaper car to assign our teenager so the insurance cost won’t kill us. Our other 2 cars: a 99 Miata & a 2014 full-size pickup. I wouldn’t think that would be his advice if it was actually a death trap.
One of the “advice columns” had a letter from a woman who was struggling with trying to buy another car for her son, who had just wrecked his. The recommendation was something like: “Buy him a bicycle and give him an assortment of local transit bus schedules.”
Then there’s a story from back when my younger daughter was in college back in the early 1980s. She had a 1966 Buick which had factory-installed seatbelts, but not much else. One day she and a classmate were going to run an errand; they got into the car and my daughter fastened her seatbelt. She just sat there until the friend asked why the car hadn’t started. She said, “You haven’t buckled your seat belt.” “Oh, is there an interlock?” Daughter pointed to her head and said, “Yes, right up here.” The moral of this story is, start early to teach your kids to Think Safety!
I think “older” just means 10-20 years old, not a ’57 Chevy. Those cars will be fully equipped with seatbelts and most will even have some form of airbags and fancy braking system.
CrazyCatLady – Although I would certainly keep the radio cars for myself as well, I strongly disagree about teens and radios. The idea that lack of radio means that focus will be 100% on driving is ridiculous. The absolute most distracted I have ever been as a driver was driving a car without a radio in A. Samoa. Singing along to the radio may be a slight distraction, but it also keeps your mind in the car. When I didn’t have a radio, I was often a million miles away from the car in my mind. I was thinking about the things I had to accomplish that day, vacation plans or talking to someone on the phone … anything to combat the mind-numbing boredom of driving up and down the same road every day. With all that teen angst swirling around, I can imagine a billion things teens would think about other than driving if they didn’t have anything to distract them from those thoughts.
Donna, knowing my almost a driver, the fact that it doesn’t have a radio WILL be a help for her. Perhaps because we live in a family that only watches PBS, she can’t stand the fact that radios have advertisements every couple of songs. Which means that every couple of songs she is switching the station. That is a distraction. And, both of the “stereos” that we have that work, only take cassette tapes. Which I mostly got rid of a couple of years ago.
This advice is for MY daughter….other kids may respond differently. One of the few accidents I was in was trying to adjust the radio and hitting black ice. Perhaps if I had been paying more attention I would have slowed down a bit more on that road and avoiding flying off into the field. I DO try to make my kids aware that road conditions can change at ANY time – I have slid on ice, soy beans, rain water, grease on the roads from rain mixing with road stuff after a long dry spell, gravel spilled….and then there are the animals that can jump out….Lots of things that mean looking at changing the station is NOT a good idea.
I agree with the POINT of the article. I wouldn’t put my kid in anything that didn’t have airbags and some level of modern “crumple zone and cage” engineering.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtxd27jlZ_g
I also wouldn’t put him in something unreliable, something I would be afraid wouldn’t start and leave him stranded.
But I don’t quite get when they mean by “cheap old car.” My first car was a 1995 Suburban, 2500 4×4 Diesel. It was my Dad’s before and 5 years old when I got it I got it. Went 0-60 in a day-and-a-half, 195 HP Detroit diesel. I am totally on board with the hand-me-down first car.
I am questioning the 11 year old thing. When is that data from? My truck right now is 11 years old (2003 Chevy Silverado) and I love it and trust it. I can’t believe that I a car made in 2003 is a death trap. That’s third generation airbag technology by that point.
My brother wrapped his hand-me-down pickup around a tree. A 2002 Chevy Silverado and came away with a concussion and some stitches. His passenger walked away from the accident.
There are a lot of good reasons for a kid to get a used car. But I am not going to panic if my get gets a car that is 10 years old, seeing that by the time he is old enough to drive, a 10 year old car will be a 2020 model.
For one thing, this whole buying them a car is BS. Driving and vehicle ownership is not a right of passage, they are both something you earn.
The first car that I ever had use of, I bought fifty fifty with my dad. We split the insurance, maintenance and always made sure there was at least half a tank of gas for each other. The availability of the car was split fifty fifty. The only time I got to drive the newer family/mom’s car was if she specifically asked me to run some errands for her, and the split car was not available.
One other reason a lot of new drivers are not adequately skilled, is complete lack of experience with any sort of motorized vehicle until they are driving cars. Those that were exposed to snowmobiles, go karts, dirt bikes, atv’s and even boats are much more ready to handle a car or truck. They will have had time with the controls, have some feel for acceleration, braking, slowing and turning.
We own two early-80’s Mercedes Diesels. They are what my daughter has learned to drive in (starting at a young age, because we still have some “country” ideas about learning independence-type skills, just in case). She will be helping to overhaul one of them this year and will not be allowed to drive it alone until she can basically help rebuild it, so that she actually understands how it works and why (and so she is less likely to get stuck somewhere).
My first car was a ’73 VW Bug (same year as me!). Learning to drive older cars has, in my experience, has helped make driving *any* vehicle easier, as well as teaching you to pay more attention to what you and your car are doing. Personally, for us, we’d go this route even if we could afford a brand-new vehicle for her with all of the newest features.
My personal experience: was given an older car, then totaled said car six months later from taking a turn too quickly. My parents sympathized, but said that I needed to buy the next car. Using money that I had already saved up from working, I bought another older car. That car lasted seven years.
Teenagers are going to be much more careful drivers if they paid for the car themselves.
@J.T. Wenting I have to disagree with you when you say:
“A person (not just a teen) with an old but not classic (and thus cheap, unimpressive) car is likely to be less careful with it than someone with a more expensive/valuable vehicle.
If it were a hand-me-down from the parents, even more so, “they were too cheap to buy me a new BMW, I hate this piece of junk”.”
For one, I drive my cars for a long time because welll…maybe I am cheep. So of course I am careful with my car. I don’t want my insurance rates going up, I don’t want expensive repairs, and I don’t want to need to buy a new car.
The vast majority of teens I have known or encountered drive an old unimpressive car. The primary exceptions that I have encountered were when a group of students from my college were sent over to a college filled with very fancy, and very rich kids. The mix of cars in the parking lots ran heavily, but far from exclusively, toward new luxury cars. Now every time we drove over we saw some vehicle with the school’s parking sticker had been involved in a one car collision. Often there would be multiple such crashes and the rare multi-vehicle collision. Without fail it was one of the fancy expensive cars that crashed. Soon we started hearing shockingly entitled things from our classmates. Unlike the kids at our school who were proud of the old clunker they had worked long hours to buy, or atleast felt lucky mom and dad helped with a loan. These wealthy students were angry at their parents for “making” them drive a BMW that was a whole 2 years old (one they had gotten new). Stories started passing around that those accidents we saw were more like calculated temper tantrums. In my one semester at that college I saw more crashed cars than I have in the rest of my life.
I concluded then and there that there was nothing more dangerous to a teen driver, than being an entitled brat. And I certainly wasn’t going to be the parent replacing an ‘accidentally’ crashed BMW with a new Audi.
When I started driving in 1998-99, I got the oldest family car, a 1994 Buick Century. That’s right, a full on sedan. And it was awesome. It had a V-8 which I never should’ve been allowed to have and the best factory audio system I’d ever seen (at the time). I have very fond memories of racing (and winning) against sports cars on my way home from work. It was glorious.
My parents had a deal with my sister and I that if we got a full ride to college they would buy us a car (any car, within reason and under 14K). So, my “first” car was a 1998 Ford Mustang. I loved that car. After market dual exhaust. Silver. Those were the days.
I wouldn’t drive anything other than an SUV now. Can’t stand being that low to the ground. When my son is old enough drive, he’ll either get the oldest of our working vehicles at the time or we’ll buy an old honda or something.
Personally I love older cars…you can do so much more crap to them without sustaining damage. When we three siblings were all teens back in the early eighties my brother would tear us around off road in an old Anglia my dad had bought dirt cheap for that very purpose. …knowing the teen mindset in the area. Never needed or wanted an actual off road vehicle :-).
We are wondering what to do about cars at the moment though, because Boy is driving the family car and is fine, but El Sicko gets to start driving in a few months, and right now she can either get her feet on the pedals or see over the dashboard. …not both. Any recommendations for cars for short people? Or do you just sit them on a pillow? That doesn’t seem that ideal, but am unsure of sensible solutions. ..and there are lots of shorties driving, so there must be something :-).
“One other reason a lot of new drivers are not adequately skilled, is complete lack of experience with any sort of motorized vehicle until they are driving cars.”
And I would add the lack of “street smarts” among teens that’s gained from being a pedestrian or biker and learning to obeying the rules of the road. Many are driven everywhere and don’t enter the driving world with a lot of real world experiences. Some are also addicted to their phones and devises and I believe the statistic is 1/3 of teens text and drive. THAT would be a big reason for accidents, not the age of a car.
My biggest problem with this article is the youth slant. If older cars lack important modern day safety advances and are somehow more dangerous, wouldn’t they be dangerous to baby boomers, senior citizens, and all drivers? Having recently been to Florida and driven A1A while in peak snowbird season, I guarantee you will spot many late model Buicks and Oldsmobiles with a blue-haired drivers just barely peaking over the enormous steering wheel. Aren’t grandmas just as important as teens?
People won’t agree but I actually am not pleased over how my parents handled that situation. I did not really beg for a car. They wanted to get me a car so they no longer had to worry about driving me to dance class, school, work, the doctor, shopping, etc. They got me one for THEIR convenience. Yes, it was nice for me too, but let’s be real, they did it for themselves so they had one less thing to do for me. I did not go out and get my permit or license the day I turned the right age. I was not that eager.
But they got me a POS that already had 100,000+ miles on it and was old and falling apart. So the first day I drove it home from school by myself it was pouring rain and the wipers stopped working. I almost got in a wreck. Then the seatbelt did not work putting me in danger. Then multiple other things kept breaking. The window would not roll down. The AC stopped working and we lived in the South. I was dripping sweat by the time I got to school or where ever.
One time I broke down at night out in the middle of nowhere with no cell phone a young pretty teenage girl. I think that is dangerous. Would not buy me a cell phone either.
I survived but I would not do that to my daughter if I had a daughter. No way. She would have a car that won’t break down constantly. She would have a cell phone in case she did break down.
Car accidents are not statistically rare. They are the number one way to die. So yeah-a car that is going to die on the middle of the interstate is not a good idea.
I would not do that to my teenage daughter if I had a daughter. Even for my sons I am making sure they have a cell phone and a decent car. They are less likely to get raped if they break down in a bad part of town at night-but they could still be in danger. I will let them drive my car or whatever but I will not be shoddy about it the way my parents were.
And they had money to buy me something nicer. They just chose not to and spent in on themselves. Then when ever the car broke YET again I would get yelled at and blamed for it. When I never had a wreck till I had been driving over 4 years and was an adult at that point.
No one is saying you have to buy them a brand new luxury car but don’t buy them a piece of shit that is going to break every other day either and get them killed.
one more thought- a more reliable car can lead to more free range. I wanted desperately to take out of town trips when I was young. But my car was so unreliable I did not like to drive more than 50 miles from home tops. Because I knew it would probably break down. So I never left home. I never ventured out on my own till I was like 20. If they had gotten me a reliable car I could have been doing that way way younger at like 16. So there you go-reliable car equals more free range. They would not let me borrow their cars ever period for trips or even around the corner.
@SOA- two things spring immediately to mind. First, why didn’t you save up then and buy a decent car yourself? Secondly, why not take public transport for trips out of town?
If a car was too expensive you could have bought a motor bike. I didn’t get a car license till I was 27, did fine with a motorbike, or bussed, trained, biked etc.
No need to rely on a crappy car. Or to blame your parents.
So here’s another question on correlation… your child is a crappy driver, so you give them a crappy car. Is it the car that killed them, or the crappy driving?
One other thing – maybe I just grew up in a nice country, or my general naivety sheltered me or something, but every time a vehicle I was in broke down etc, or heard about breaking down, never was rape or assault anywhere in the picture. Some lovely person, always male and often rough-looking, would appear and fix the problem.
I don’t mean we should always rely on others. …just that 99.99% of people of all shapes and sizes are marvelous and helpful.
@SOA: Teenaged boys and “young pretty teenage girls” such as yourself getting raped if their car breaks down?! Holy fuck shit we just don’t have these problems up north.
“I wanted desperately to take out of town trips when I was young. But my car was so unreliable I did not like to drive more than 50 miles from home tops. Because I knew it would probably break down. So I never left home. I never ventured out on my own till I was like 20. If they had gotten me a reliable car I could have been doing that way way younger at like 16.”
Um, there’s this thing called public transportation. I didn’t have my *own* car until I bought one at age 20 but took the bus, train, and public transit EVERYWHERE. It was the most affordable on my student income. I used the ride share board at college to visit my boyfriend in Syracuse at least twice a month. I flew to Florida to visit my sister solo when I was 17. I loved to travel too but instead of blaming my parents for not spoiling me I made it happen on a shoestring.
Your unreliable car had nothing to do with you not traveling or leaving home. That’s all on you.
Asya,
Your statement reminded me of something that happened a few years ago. I was on my way home when the car in front of me stalled and wouldn’t restart. I pulled off the road and walked up to the car and asked the driver if she needed help. She told me that her father was on the way. I said “How about we get your car off of the road?”. She told me that she wasn’t getting out of the car until her Father was there, how did she know that I wasn’t going to rape her?”. 5:30 PM in the middle of rush hour traffic on a crowded road in the middle of a traffic jam that she created and she was worried about me raping her. I told her that she didn’t have to get out of the car, just put it in neutral so I could push her off the road.
I learned to drive in the Navy. You get kind of cautious when you are driving a truckload of bombs. I actually had my pilot’s license before I had my driver’s license.
I knew someone would bring up public transportation. LOL in the area I live in it does NOT exist. We have no trains. No subways. Only city buses and they only run in certain parts of town (not in the parts I have ever lived in). We also don’t have sidewalks or lots of crosswalks either.
In the suburban south cars are king and there is little to no public transit or even pedestrian friendly areas. I love to walk and would walk everywhere if it was possible in our area. Its not. Everything is spread apart and no sidewalks and no crosswalks. When we do walk we often get almost run over because motorists are not used to seeing pedestrians and don’t even watch for them.
Not everywhere is Chicago or New York. Public transport is not a thing in the suburban or rural south.
For the breaking down part: Emergency Roadside Assistance. $5 extra every six months. Also….a tool kit, and a cell phone…though most everyone else who stops to help will have one.
When I moved to Montana, I ended up getting a 74 Scout with a sweet winch on the front. I got it for cheap because it was the car that belonged to a teen. A teen who had “borrowed” his mother’s new car, and totaled it. To pay her back part of the cost, he had to sell his car.
I loved that car. Would still have it if we hadn’t moved to CA where it would have needed to go through emissions that it would never pass.
Motorbike? LOL my mom would have locked me in the closet if I tried to get a motorbike.
No it was very her way or the highway. She wanted to not have to drive me to work or school or activities or on errands but she did not want to pony up enough money for me to do so in a reliable car. She hates motorcycles and would never let me have one.
She wanted me out of her hair, but could care less if I ended up stranded alone at night in a bad part of town with no cell phone. Sometimes for dance competitions or performances I had to drive downtown alone at night in dark empty parking garages or parking lots late at night when I got done and yes, I doubt that was a good situation for me to be alone stranded in when my car won’t start. You are in denial if you say you would be fine with your 16 year old daughter in said situation.
SOA, public transport also did not exist on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, when I lived there, nor in Bozeman Montana when I lived there.
I understand completely. Nearest bus stop to where I am now is 3 miles.
SOA – If you are old enough to drive, you are old enough to get a job and pay for your own cell phone. And, yes, you can get a cell phone without an adult, even if you are under 18. You are also old enough to get a job and buy your own car if the one provided for you is unsatisfactory. And, yes, you can also do that without an adult. Or you can refuse to drive it if you feel so unsafe. There is a bus to get you to school. Anything else is a privilege.
I have no problem providing a cell phone and car to my daughter if I can swing it, but if I ever heard anything even marginally close to what you posted here coming out of her mouth (or off her fingers), both would immediately be taken away and she left to get herself wherever she needed to get by her own means.
SOA,
HOLY DIVA SENSE OF ENTITLEMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!
They bought you a car! The least you could have done was get off your ass, get a job, and pay for maintenance, a cellphone, or a better car. If you had spent the time working instead of whining, you probably would have been able to afford whatever car you wanted.
Dripping in sweat? Really? Pretty much all my vehicles had AC, but I never used it. Windows down even on the hottest days was good enough.
Either you are leading the world’s worst life, in the worst community in the states, or you just need to get over yourself, grow up, and please get some therapy.
And I am so with Donna, on the idea that if my kid ever talked/posted like you did about a car bought for them? The next time they drove a car would be after buying one for themselves.
My first car was a 1975 Ford Maverick. It had been my grandmother’s car. I wish I still had it, that thing was a tank. It would not go over 40 miles an hour. I drive on I35 everyday, south towards downtown, and I see fender benders resulting in incredibly crumpled vehicles. Perhaps the less-solid, sensor-happy cars aren’t as “safe” as thought. All the sensors (even on things like tires) reminds me of Scotty in Star Trek: “The fancier the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the pipes.” I hate the idea of buying a newer car, because they’re sealing the engines now. I like working on my own car, thank you.
So… You need a car for every person in the family that drives?
What percentage of the family income went to ‘transport’ again??
@Hineata: (Lenore said: ) “As the mom of […] one 1998 Oldsmobile”
NOW I understand that epidural :O 😛
“We have no trains. No subways. Only city buses and they only run in certain parts of town (not in the parts I have ever lived in). We also don’t have sidewalks or lots of crosswalks either.”
And that calls itself a first world country.
About the radio thing and keeping your mind in the car: the best way *I* can keep concentrating on the road is by driving a manual car. I have driven an automatic for a couple of times and found my mind wandering off much more easily than when I have to change gears myself (and therefore keep track of my speed!).
Very minorly in Dolly’s defense, no AC in Toronto is hugely different than no AC in the southern US. That said, I drove a non-AC car the entire time I was in A. Samoa. While I occasionally complained about how uncomfortable it was, I never expected that the AS government should have provided me a better car. I was just happy to have a free car.
@hineata-
“Some lovely person, always male and often rough-looking, would appear and fix the problem.”
At my 25 year high school reunion, I ran into a friend who reminded me of when he came to my rescue after my best friend and I went to a concert in the city at age 17(think it was Grateful Dead). We were leaving the concert and driving home in my mom’s newish Oldsmobile when it started overheating. I pulled over on a most dangerous 8 lane highway and we popped the hood. I noticed a familiar conversion van pulling over (I’m pretty sure it had a “If the van is a rockin’ don’t come a knockin” bumper sticker). It was my high school classmate whom I recognized with his distinct long hair and heavy metal appearance. He was a drummer for a band in town. We were not friends(yet) but he helped me get fluids for my car and get it home safely (he trailed us the whole way).
We became good friends after that and even went to concerts together (he drove!)
@hineata
I am one of those rough looking guys. There have been times that by the time I realized, at highway speed, that someone was stuck on the shoulder, it was too late to stop. So I have gotten off at the next exit, back tracked, and helped.
Unfortunately in this day and age, the number of people willing to stop and help are dwindling. I don’t know if it is because they are too self absorbed, assume they have roadside assitance, or the assumption they have a cell to call for help with, but the number of good samaritans are shrinking.
I’m sorry today’s teens won’t have the pleasure of cruising the suburbs in their Daddy’s ’76 Chevy Convertible, seating six comfortably. (White with green vinyl seats! )
@Warren – good for you! And yeah, it’s weird, people don’t seem to help so much. Not sure why either….maybe too many crime shows? Or I wonder if it’s simply that cars are maybe more complicated than they used to be, and people are afraid of looking silly if they can’t help? Though we still seem to be able to rely on blokes, especially the young ones, at least to help push your car off the road :-).
@SOA- I think it is the tone of entitlement in your original comment that is the most off-putting. So your parents dared to spend their own money on themselves?
Actually, beyond feeding and clothing you, your parents had no great obligations to you. Lovely that they paid for dance classes, would have been great if Mum had wanted to continue taking you and picking you up, but she didn’t, and she even provided a car for you to carry on going in. I say she was pretty great, actually. …she could have gotten you out of her hair by insisting you get a job etc.
Realizing that my anecdotal evidence proves nothing, I’ve been the proud owner of a ’98 Plymouth Grand Voyager since I was 17 (in 2007), and not only is it still in tip-top shape with regular basic maintenance, I trust it thousands of times more than my friends’ newer cars, because it’s just made of stronger stuff. I have, in fact, taught two of my friends to drive using that car, because it’s about as safe as it’s possible to get while still inside a car.
I suspect that one of the biggest dangers to teen drivers today is distraction, and older cars have way fewer distractions in them (no touch-screen control panels, no iPod hookups, no video screens). My advice to parents is, get your kids a good-condition old tank with some mileage on it.
Get them a car they’d be embarrassed to speed in?
G
Also, everybody ease up on SOA. You don’t know what all her circumstances were. Not every teenager does have the time or ability to scrimp and save – suppose she was putting money away for college at the time, or suppose she had younger siblings and her parents needed her to babysit instead of working outside the home?
If you want to buy your kid a car, fine. If you want your kid to save up for his own car, fine. But do one or the other, not some weird passive-aggressive in-between stage. I think it actually is irresponsible to buy your kid a total junk bucket. Old cars require lots of TLC that most new drivers aren’t going to know how to give. It’s not entitlement to want to feel comfortable on the road as a young driver. Anxious drivers cause accidents.
Don’t people on this blog like to be rational and realistic about risks?
Then older cars are indeed a real risk. Traffic-related deaths are the number one killer of people between ages 10-45 in US. It is a real danger: 32.319 people died in 2012 as a consequence of traffic incidents (source: http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811813.pdf). It used to be a bit more than 50.000 in the late 1970s so deaths are roughly 60% lower when adjusted for population and driven miles. Yet, too many people die in car accidents. Around 90.000 other people don’t die, but get permanent injuries or disabilities from car crashes per year.
Car safety is not an instance of exaggerated perception of danger, it is a real concern. Multiple aribags, “collapsible” frames (that destroy the outer parts of cars while preserving a “survival cell” for passengers/driver intact as much as possible possible), ABS brakes and many other safety features help reduce fatality rates.
As technology makes car safer over time, it is obviously that a 20-year old clunker will be less safe than a brand new car. Of course, budgets have to be realistic, so some compromise need to be found. Yet, cars from the early 2000s are not much more expensive than cars from the 1980s that are still around, and much, much safer.
I cringe at the suggestion of some fellow commentators that teens should get wrecks from the 1970s to “learn mechanics”. That is really irresponsible. I also think that there is no value in learning mechanical skills for older cars that no longer applies to modern cars. What is the point of knowing how to fix a carburetor, if modern cars all use fuel injection and cannot be fixed without advanced digital tools?
Want to make your teen safe? Teach him/her not to text or use the cellphone, ever, while actively driving. That is more relevant than radio, or AC distraction. The best way to teach a teen not to text/talk on phone is not to talk or text yourself (leading by example).
I also wish some other commentators were able to realize not all of US is like New York or Chicago. In most US towns, there is simply no form of public transportation. It is either teens driving, or parents driving them. Since parents work, that means teens unable to have their own schedules, at least if they are academically-oriented teens who cannot work 8/day without jeopardizing chances of a good college admission.
“My biggest problem with this article is the youth slant. If older cars lack important modern day safety advances and are somehow more dangerous, wouldn’t they be dangerous to baby boomers, senior citizens, and all drivers?”
I was going to post something in this vein as well. As with all the other fear-mongering safety stuff, it’s written only as it relates to kids (kind of like disaster reporting focusing on how many children were affected). One certainly gets the impression that it’s more than acceptable when an adult dies, but let it affect a child and mountains are moved.
Andre L, you are right, car related deaths are the leading cause of death for that age group.
But…you are mistaken that cars from the 80s cost the same as a car from say 2001. If they did, I would be driving one, instead of the 80’s to 90’s vehicles that I have. Do I really like driving in a vehicle with no AC when it is 105 or more for 3 weeks? No, I don’t. But I do like it more than debt. Because I have 3 kids that I will need to send to college and me NOT paying for them to go to college is not an option anymore. They will go community college then transfer because that is what we can afford. If we are lucky, my husband’s college debt will be paid off before our oldest starts, but I am not sure of that.
When my kids drive, they will know how to keep their car as safe as possible. They DO already know to not talk on the phone because when the phone rings and I am driving, I hand it to one of them, or I pull over. (And they count the people breaking the law driving while on the phone.) And unless they buy it themselves, they will have a cheap phone with a limit on minutes because the phone reception is spotty around here and I am not going to pay for a phone that doesn’t work.
But overall, yes, for ALL ages, a newer car is safer.
Mandy, It was the sense of entitlement in Dolly’s post that was the problem – the clear belief that she was entitled to either a good car or her parents continuing to schlep her everywhere she wanted to go and no ability to understand that BOTH of these things are a privilege. Her parents could have simply said we are not driving you anymore, but they provided her a car that allowed her to still attend activities that were important to her instead. It may not have been the best car in the world, but it served the purpose of her continuing to be able to enjoy her activities despite their lack of desire to continue taking her.
I don’t expect a teen to really get that. Heck, I remember hating the car my parents gave me when I was 16. But Dolly is not a self-absorbed teenager anymore (or at least shouldn’t be) and her sense of entitlement should have long since evaporated.
And we know that Dolly was not babysitting younger siblings because Dolly has said several times that she is an only child.
@Andre
Tell you what, let’s have one of the new “safe” cars tangle with my daughter’s old pickup truck. Promise you it will be Truck 1 Car 0.
You cannot make blanket statements that all older cars are dangerous, just because they do not have the same airbags as the new ones. Airbags are not a guarantee of safety. Never have been and never will be.
As for them learning simple mechanical fixes and maintenance? That has not changed all that much. Back in the day most people did not know how to rebuild a carb, but they did know how to change a sparkplug. Most heavy equipment operators get instructed on the basics of the mechanics of the equipment they will be operating. It should be no different for those getting a driver’s license.
Do I expect my daughters to diagnose a fuel injection problem? No, hell the mechanics don’t even do that, they just hook up the computer. But my daughters can and do know where and how to properly check and maintain all fluid levels. Including one of them telling a man the other day that he could use automatic tranny fluid when his power steering was leaking and bone dry. They can change tires, and have actually stopped and help change tires on the road.
They know what additives to use and when.
I don’t know about you, but I am proud my girls don’t have to call about every little thing. Too many this day just rely on mom or dad to do and know it all. It is called giving them the proper tools in life.
Mandy,
Would it not have been better to have SOA go on about the car her parents bought her, but all the repairs she had to do, and what she learned from doing them? Instead of just bitching about how horrible her parents were.
I highly doubt things have changed for her. She strikes me as the kind that would come home and blame her husband, because she got a flat tire.
@Papilio – by the way, take for the image, lol!😊 The mere thought made me wish I was still hooked up to the drugs. ..!
The victim mentality that’s in play here with teenagers and older cars is what baffles me. It’s like we still think teenagers are big babies and old cars are giant choking hazards and another source of worry. What is the magic age to be responsible?
I also came from a town with no public transit. I got rides from friends (remember getting picked up at 5am for morning swim practices in high school by the captain of the swim team) and still got around. I went to college with no car in the middle of nowhere but surprisingly the town had bus service to anywhere I needed to go. I got a job that was 15 minutes outside of town and had to walk a mile to my bus stop and by my senior year of college, had saved up to buy my first car, a Toyota Corolla with low miles that I researched and got a great deal on. When I graduated college at 20, I had a territory manager position that required me to travel almost half the state (with no cell phone!) That car rocked and was great on gas. I sold it for a profit the following year when I got promoted and got a company car and a bigger territory.
I never saw what I drove (or didn’t drive) as an obstacle to getting around. I also never viewed myself as a victim of my circumstances but as someone in control of my future. If I wanted something, I worked for it.
@CrazyCatLady–I can’t really get behind the “My child is immature at twelve, therefore, he or she shouldn’t drive at sixteen” mentality. Kids have growth spurts, right? Well, sometimes kids also mature very quickly, mentally and emotionally. Taking music in high school had that effect on me. I went from being the kid nobody liked in elementary school, to being a part of a group working towards a common goal, I had to fit in daily practice, plus band rehearsals each week at a scheduled time (and sectionals later on), and this taught me perseverance, organization, and time management. Once I could handle that, I started doing other activities around school as well, like student government and peer assisting. So, I was much more mature at sixteen than I was at twelve, and your middle child probably will be as well. Also, four years feels much longer for a child or a teenager than it does for an adult, so to them, saying “Hey Twelve, if you don’t stop shoving candy wrappers in the radiator now, I won’t let you get your driver’s license in four years” would be like Twelve telling you, “Hey CrazyCatLady, if you don’t stop spending so much time on Free Range Kids now, I’m sending you to the cheap nursing home in your old age.”
P.S., I’m just curious, what was the reason for gluing the drawer shut?
P.S., I agree with Mandy. An old car is fine for a teenager (or an adult, for that matter) to drive, but it should at least be reliable. Blaming Dolly every time her unreliable car broke down, through no fault of her own, just compounded the problem. I mean, teenagers are at a stage where they should really feel safe going to their parents with their problems, because that’s the age when most kids start learning to drive, dating, drinking, having sex…..in other words, adolescence is sort of the Home of the Whoppers. A crashed car could kill someone. Sex could get someone pregnant, or result in an STD. Drinking too much alcohol could result in drunkenness, or even alcohol poisoning, and when combined with driving, it could kill someone. I know that that’s sort of “worst-first thinking,” but in these cases, the “worst” is SO much worse than what it was just a few years ago, when the “worst possible outcome” might have been, say, breaking an arm or a leg falling off the monkey bars. Teenagers shouldn’t have to deal with the “worst” in these scenarios I described all alone, but if they don’t feel safe going to their parents, they’ll try to. So, the answer to “Mom/Dad, my car broke down and I’m stranded at the dance studio,” shouldn’t have been “You stupid, irresponsible child!!!”; but rather, “Dolly, I’m so glad you called me. First, check under the hood for X, try doing Y, and if that doesn’t work, here’s the number for our mechanic. Got a pen? Good, write it down so you’ll have it for next time.”
Another thing I forgot to mention–I think that, if someone like Warren set up a general-interest class on basic auto repairs, he’d probably make a fortune. Most university-bound high school students don’t take auto shop (I didn’t), because the tech classes aren’t considered to be “solid academic classes,” but people get so wrapped up in the “high school to college or university” mentality that they forget that some of these “soft options” teach vital life skills. Maybe people forget, or maybe they know, but the colleges and universities just don’t care. But, if there was a course like this offered after school, or on the weekends, I bet people would take it. The other great thing is, these skills can be used to help others, so the graduates of Warren’s basic auto repair class could become Good Samaritans like Warren, and help other people whose cars break down on the side of the road.
Emily, I HOPE, I truly do HOPE, that my 12 year old will be ready to drive at 16. But, though I do expect the best from him, just like I do his brother and sister, he has always been a couple of years behind socially and maturity wise. He is generally a very sweet kid and people remark about how smart and compassionate he is.
But the pattern has been…he does things…then thinks about what he did. It is a pattern that he has had from very young, despite everyone in the family telling to stop and think before he acts. It is just him. I think he will need a few more years of riding shotgun listening to me talking about what is happening around me while driving for him to get those lessons ingrained. Lets face it, while my son is not a daredevil, driving DOES require a level of maturity. Before I let him loose on the kids, animals and other drivers out there, I have to be 100% sure that he is ready. He is not yet showing signs, but yes, big jumps could happen though that has not been his learning style up to now.
He glued the drawer shut because he shares the room with his brother. Brother occasionally has a younger friend over who apparently was going through drawers and my older son was afraid that the kid would find his allowance and birthday money. Better than gluing the drawer shut would have been to have a talk with me so I could talk with the kid and/or his parents and let him know that it is not polite to go through other people’s drawers. I think that he would listen to and understand this. I am sure he doesn’t want my sons going through his stuff.
Donna: not in 1996 you could not get a cell phone alone if you were under 18. there were no prepaid phones that existed back then. Also cell phones were a lot more expensive back then too. I did pay for my own pager and my mom signed the contract so I could have it.
I did have a job. I mentioned work as one of the places they did not want to drive me anymore. I got in trouble at work a couple times when the car broke down yet again and I could not get there on time. I taught dance which meant I got free dance lessons which saved my parents probably $400 a month. I also did lots of babysitting especially in the Summer.
I used that money to buy just about all my own clothing, paying for any movies or dates or presents for people etc. My parents gave me zero spending money. I had to pay for that myself.
I never asked for a car so if they got mad and took the car away, that would have been fine by me. They wanted me to stay busy with dance and work so I had less time to get into trouble and they wanted me to have plenty of time for studying too. So if you want your teen to achieve all that kind of stuff, you have to help out in some way with transportation or money or something. I ended up getting a college scholarship from dance for free tuition so I guess it paid off some.
They just did not want to deal with me, whether that means coming to pick me up late at night downtown when the car would not start again or driving me themselves. Which hurts. I would never be like that with my kids.
@Dolly–It’s okay. Warren can get a bit black-and-white sometimes. The mindset that “can’t afford a car = not working = lazy” is an easy trap to fall into, but that’s not always the case.
My own car is 13 years old. And I ferry my 10yo around in it. I’m such a careless parent!
As for the radio, I use mine on long car trips to keep me wide awake. I drove a rental car from Sydney to Canberra after flying home from Europe a few years ago and it didn’t have a radio. I had to sing acapella for 3.5 hrs to keep myself awake and alert!
I actually think this article makes a decent point – I mean, at least it focuses on a risk that is actually real (car accidents rather than child abductions). And I agree that a somewhat newer car is better than a really old car with no airbags. But that doesn’t mean you need a brand-new car, just one that has a reasonable amount of safety features.
Emily,
Do not try to explain away anything I say. So she worked. Then she should have been smart enough to not spend her money on dates, movies, presents and such, when he mode of transportation was in such need of repairs. That is life, and it is black and white. You choose to spend money on recreation and ignore your vehicle, then shut the hell up and stop whining about the car breaking down.
There have been plenty of times I would have rather spent the money on anything other than parts for a vehicle. Nobody likes that kind of expense, but we do it.
Again she had a car BOUGHT for her. Shut up and be grateful.
@Warren–Dolly said absolutely nothing about her spending habits as a teenager. You made up what you said about “spending money on dates and recreation” out of thin air. As for her parents buying her the car, I think there is such thing as a Trojan Horse gift, and a car that breaks down every other day, like Dolly’s car did, falls into that category. I’m sure she was grateful that her parents bought her a car, but she would have been more grateful if it had been safe and reliable.
Did you notice I said I had to buy all my own clothing? That took about all my money I earned right there. Then if I wanted to buy my parents something for Christmas, that had to come out of my work money too. I did not spend any money on dates because I am a girl and thus the man pays for the dates.
I did not even socialize much so money was not being blown on that. With working, after school activities, studying, there was never much time for socializing.
That car was so messed up beyond belief no teenager would have been able to make the money to fix everything wrong with it. It needed literally everything replaced. I don’t know any teen with that kind of money who can still make good grades and do a very intensive after school activity and work too. It would require me to do nothing but work to earn that kind of money and my parents would not have allowed that. They wanted me to be well rounded.
They had rules and expectations but did not want to have to do anything on their part to make that happen. Why should I have to give up my after school activity to work all the time to pay for a car I never wanted in the first place?! I did not want the damn car! I just wanted to go to dance class and teach dance and go to school and babysit and occasionally socialize. It was THEM that wanted me to have the car because they were too lazy to drive me even though they wanted me to do all those things so I could look good as a college applicant and they could brag about it to people of how accomplished I was. They wanted to spend the bare minimum money on a car and then magically have them never have to deal with it again, and life does not work that way. They were the ones in denial.
I drive an old car too. Its like a 2007 or something. Has 90,000 miles on it. But it never never never breaks down. Not one time. Our other car is a 2004 with 60,000 miles and also never breaks down but it does not even have automatic locks. It is a bare bones car. But the point is they are RELIABLE. They are not fancy. They are not impressive. But they never break down. That is what matters. A car that has every little thing constantly breaking on it is not a car worth having.
If anything all that lesson taught me is earn enough money so that I NEVER have to drive a car that shitty again in my life. I will only drive a reliable car. Does not have to be a pretty car or a fancy car or a new car but by God it better be reliable.
@Dolly–That makes sense. The car wasn’t a Trojan Horse gift, per se, but your parents just bought you the cheapest car they could find, without really giving much thought to whether or not it was safe and reliable. That really wasn’t smart. I mean, maybe the “life lesson” was that you had to work to keep it up (as Warren said), but if the car needed more repairs than any teenager could afford to pay for (and I’d imagine it was something like playing whack-a-mole, with one thing breaking almost as soon as you’d fixed another thing), and if it routinely broke down and prevented you from getting to where you needed to be (thereby defeating the purpose of having the car), then that just isn’t practical. There are some things that probably shouldn’t be a “life lesson,” and I think this is one of them. It’s fine to tell a teenager “No car until you save up for one,” but it’s not fine to give them an unsafe car that’s always breaking down. I mean, it’d be awful to do that to another adult, like if you were buying a car for your parents, right? So, why do any differently for a teenager? First off, a teenager who’s old enough to have a driver’s license is within a year or two of being an adult anyway. Second, a teenage driver is going to be fairly new at driving, so that makes it even more important to make sure that any car you buy for a teenager is safe. Third, I think there’s a limit to what adults should pass off as a “life lesson,” and deliberately putting someone in an untenable situation doesn’t qualify.
Old cars are fine as long as they are reliable. Said that, newer cars tend to have better safety features which, although not a must, are definitely a nice-to-have.
My first car was a ’57 Chevy. My mother was a safety nut and insisted we retrofit seat belts into it, but it was done poorly, with the lap and shoulder belts having to be clicked together before being secured into a single latch, and the mounts were bolted to the body, not the frame.
Add to that a metal dashboard, a javelin for a steering column, and a rather kooky kid driving the damned thing, and, well, I should have died.
Many, many, many times over.
But I had good fortune, and I’m typing this today.
I don’t think my kids would ever want an old classic car that predates Nader’s safety transformations, let alone the post-’95 requirements, but if they did, I guess I’d let them drive one. And hope they, too, have good luck.
Emily,
“I used that money to buy just about all my own clothing, paying for any movies or dates or presents for people etc.”
Taken directly from Dolly’s own post. Thank you very much.
So no there is no sympathy for someone whining about the old car they were GIVEN. I worked jobs from 14 yrs old. When my stereo went on the fritz, I paid for the repair. I actually even paid for the stereo with money I earned that year.
When I was driving, there were times I spent money on the car, instead of other things. Why? Because without the car, I couldn’t get to work, and then would not be able to afford the other things.
You can feel sorry for Dolly all you want, but she is just a whining ungrateful woman, that has too high an opinion of herself and what she is entitled to.
@No rest,
My kids are the opposite, they would love to have a classic car. They are always begging and bargaining to get ahold of mine. LOL, I have them convinced that I am being buried in it, so that yes I am taking it with me. When actually it is in the will.
@Warren: “So no there is no sympathy for someone whining about the old car they were GIVEN.”
From what I understand the car was not simply old, it was an unreliable piece of garbage. Nothing against old cars, but if the car is unreliable it requires expenses to make it reliable, which means that the nice gift is ultimately a burden. On top of that the poster stated that she didn’t want the car, but refusing it was not an option. If you cannot say “thanks, but no thanks” then it’s not a gift, it’s an imposition.
Something being freely given doesn’t make it automatically good gift, nor something automatically warranting gratefulness. If you think otherwise I have plenty of garbage to dump on your lawn as “gift”, and I expect you to be happy and grateful about it. Add to this that you cannot refuse it and I’m sure you’ll start “whining” like the poster you are criticising in no time.
@bsolar
I see you have the same set of values that Dolly does.
1. She didn’t want the car, but still wanted her parents to drive her everywhere she wanted to go.
2. She whined about AC like that is something she was entitled to have.
3. Those breakdowns she described sounded like very easily prevented, and or remedied with setting her priorities properly, instead of whining about them.
4. She could not afford to buy her own car? Fine, but the fixes the car needed were probably a lot cheaper than buying a car.
5. She could have refused the car. But like most other people, if you don’t want the car, don’t whine about not being able to get around.
6. And no she gets no sympathy. I paid for the car, I paid for repairs and maintenance. I chose to do brakes instead of going off with my friends for the weekend. I chose to do a tuneup instead of buying that jean jacket, or whatever. Why? Because I wanted a car that ran.
7. How many teens would be bending over and kissing their parent’s ass for giving them a car, even if it needs work? Most that do not think they deserve more, and have an overinflated sense of entitlement.
8. Had my kid acting like Dolly, the car would be taken away and they would be told to walk no matter how far the distance. Don’t want to repair the car, don’t want to walk, then you obviously don’t want to go wherever too badly.
Now if you want to dump a truckload of crap on my property go for it, Moron. Bring it. If the dogs don’t get ya, the cops will. You are comparing a gift to illegal activity. Not even close.
@Warren:
I didn’t expect you to agree with me, but at least to be civil. I’m fine with you disagreeing with my arguments, I don’t presume to be always right, nor to impose my opinion on others, nor to convince everyone that I’m right. But I’m not fine with you calling me a moron or otherwise being insulting.
I still disagree with your interpretation of Dolly’s posts. Said that, being in disagreement is part of an interesting debate but if there is no respect from one side to the other I have no interest in keeping our discussion going: it is simply not worth it.
Warren: You are leaving out the part that my parents WANTED me to work and have after school activities. If I just went to school and then sat around the house, they would have flipped out. They wanted the house to themselves sometimes for one thing. They wanted me to have a good chance of getting a scholarship to college and to get that you need after school activities and/or work experience.
Part of the issue which is deeper is my mom was recently remarried. She got remarried when I was 14. They still were newlyweds at 16 and wanted lots of time to do whatever they hell they wanted. If that means taking off somewhere they wanted to do so but if that meant driving me to dance or to babysit, they did not want to bother with it. So they did the bare minimum and bought me a car I never asked for. Then thought they were done with the whole situation at that point.
But when you buy a POS car that breaks every other week, then that is not the end of it. They are on the line for driving me when the car is in the shop again. They are on the line for paying for repairs. Because it was their thing they wanted, not having to deal with me so they could pretend they were young folks with no kids basically.
It comes down to they wanted to have their cake and eat it too and life does not work that way. They wanted me to work and have after school activities and be out of the house, but they did not want to drive me nor did they want to pay for a reliable car. Well that is not going to work out and it did not work out and then they took their anger about that out on me.
@bsolar,
“. If you think otherwise I have plenty of garbage to dump on your lawn as “gift”, and I expect you to be happy and grateful about it.”
Your backhanded attempt at an insult. Me I prefer to do it directly, you Idiot. Don’t like my in your face ways, then don’t make idiotic statements like that one.
Dolly,
Get over yourself. Grow the hell up.
You really need to get help with your mommy issues, daddy issues, neighbor issues and basically just most issues.
Parents even newlywed parents have the right to enjoy life without it revolving around a 16 yr old that should be mature enough to take care of themselves. By the sounds of it you are not even mature enough to take care of yourself now. Stop blaming everyone for everything. Grow the hell up.
@Warren: “Your backhanded attempt at an insult. Me I prefer to do it directly, you Idiot. Don’t like my in your face ways, then don’t make idiotic statements like that one.”
I didn’t intend to “backhand” any insult and I’m sorry if it came out that way. With my sentence above I was trying to explain to you that not everything which is freely given can ben considered a good gift. You actually seem to agree, since you reacted pretty vehemently against the idea of receiving unsolicited freely given stuff.
I’m sorry that you resorted again to name-calling. I’m fine with you being confrontational, but one thing is being confrontational, another thing is being insulting: being confrontational is no excuse for name-calling your counterpart.
@bsolar,
No I was bothered by someone being such a moron, as to suggest they could trespass on my property, and think they could get away with it.
And identifying you as a moron is not name calling. It is pointing out a well defined fact. I am sorry if you feel it to be insulting.
@Warren–
1. Nowadays, fourteen is too young to get a proper job (beyond babysitting, paper routes, etc., that don’t pay much), because of labour laws. Also, I don’t see many kids doing paper routes nowadays–it’s usually adults driving house to house, rather than kids on foot or bicycle.
2. When Dolly said she had to buy her own clothes, she meant ALL her clothes. Short of walking around naked (clearly not an option), there’s no way around needing to buy clothes. I’m sure she made her money stretch as far as she could there, by buying from thrift stores and such.
3. Yes, newlyweds should have time together, BUT when parents divorce and remarry, they should make some effort to ensure that the kids from their first marriage don’t get forgotten. My parents are lawyers, and they do a lot of family law. They’ve told me a lot of stories of people who divorce, remarry, maybe even have kids with their new spouse, and all of a sudden, the kids they had from their first marriage become a nuisance to them, just by existing, let alone having the gall to actually need something. Needless to say, it’s pretty sad.
4. “Taking care of yourself” isn’t black and white. It’s reasonable for a sixteen-year-old to need help learning to drive, or with auto repairs after earning his or her license. A seventeen-or-eighteen-year-old might need help applying to college or university. A first-time parent might call his or her parents and ask something like, “How do I get these grass stains out of Prima’s soccer uniform?”; or “How can I help Secundus sleep through the night?” Likewise, older parents might ask their teenager to help them thread a needle or fill the water softener (around here, the smallest bag of salt you can buy is 40 pounds). That’s just life–nobody is an island.
5. In some places, air conditioning IS a necessity. I lived in Australia for two years, where 30 C wasn’t uncommon, and the hottest day I experienced there was 42 C. The university-affiliated postgraduate house where I lived, had air conditioning, and university accommodations aren’t known for frivolous extras. Also, the inside of a car can get much hotter than the inside of a house in the summer time, even on just an average summer day. Remember video rental stores, with their dire warnings not to leave VHS or Beta tapes in cars, because they could melt? The one near my house actually had a melted tape along with the sign, as a cautionary tale. Even if Dolly didn’t strictly-speaking NEED A/C in her car, I can see this being an “adding insult to injury” type of thing, if the car really broke down as often as she said it did.
Emily,
Stop drinking the Dolly Kool Aid.
1. At 14, get off your ass and mow lawns, shovel snow or do other odd jobs. No laws here against it. And I made great money doing it.
2. Unless her parents took away all her previous clothes, just how much monthly would she NEED to spend on clothes? Need not want to buy.
3. Driving an ungrateful brat around is not quality time. Especially when she can do it herself. It is called growing up. Something she hasn’t done to this day.
4. Nothing more than whiney bullshit. If you don’t know, then learn. He or she who learns by finding out, is seven fold as smart as he or she who learns by being told. And for crying out loud, my kids at 14 knew how to handle car repairs, and the such. As it is a skill they would need.
5.AND A HUGE BULLSHIT on the AC being needed. For decades their was no such thing in cars. Roll the windows down. I don’t know about you but I don`t see it as a requirement. AC is a luxury, and or privelage. You want it you buy it.
You can defend her all you want, but Dolly on this is nothing more than a whining little snit, that never deserved the car or to be driven.
My kids would lose all vehicles privelages for an attitude like that. And had I been that way with my dad, I would have got a shot in the yap. And deserved it.
@Warren, I’ll try to explain myself again in a polite way:
1. You claimed that Dolly should be grateful for the car since it was “given”.
2. I pointed out that not everything “given” is automatically welcome.
3. I made an example by suggesting me “giving” you junk. Since it’s “given” you should be grateful for it.
4. You would not be grateful for it, you would call the police and sue me for trespassing.
5. So you agree that not everything freely given is welcome, which is exactly the point.
About your argument “you should not be offended by being called moron since it’s a fact you are a moron”, first of all it’s not yours to decide this as “fact”: you are entitled your opinions but facts are a different thing. Moreover, even if you truly believe I’m a moron, this doesn’t make ok to call me one: this is basic good manners. On top of that, claiming that your intent was not to insult and offend me is ridiculous.
@Warren–
1. You made significant money at 14 doing odd jobs. You were the exception, not the rule. When I was that age, I was told that “school was my job.” We were raised in different kinds of households. That doesn’t make either of us right or wrong; it just is.
2. Of course Dolly’s parents (probably) didn’t take away all her previous clothes when they instituted the “Dolly must buy her own clothes from now on” policy, but teenagers grow, clothes wear out, and I’m sure there were times when multiple clothing items wore out/got outgrown, at the same time the car broke down. Expenses pile up, and that can be difficult for anyone, let alone a teenager who’s been made to feel like she can’t ask for help with anything, at all, ever.
3. This ties in with #2–there’s “ungrateful brat,” and “teenager shunted aside in favour of parent’s new relationship.” I think Dolly falls into the second category. She lived with her mother most of her life, and then, all of a sudden, she meets a new guy, and they basically tell her that they don’t want her around…..and oh yeah, the new guy is her “stepdad,” and he now has authority over her. That would upset anyone, let alone a hormonal teenager. We don’t know that Dolly ever told her mom and stepdad how she felt; maybe that’s why she’s telling us now. Maybe she feared being punished if she told her mom and stepdad how she felt. I mean, you’re saying you’d punish your kids (by taking away vehicle privileges) if they expressed a similar sentiment, so maybe Dolly’s coming on here and telling us everything she could never tell her mother.
4. People help each other. That’s not “whiny b.s.” You can’t “teach” someone to do something that they can’t do, for whatever reason. If an older person (like, say, my mom), doesn’t have the upper body strength to lift a 40-pound bag of salt onto their shoulder to refill the water softener, then you can’t “teach” them to be stronger; at least not right away. People learn new skills (like driving) at all ages, and they’re not going to be able to master it instantly–they’re going to need help. When I mentioned helping a 17-or-18-year-old apply for college or university, it’s a huge, overwhelming process that these young people are entering into for the first time, and the application fees were pretty steep even when I did it. I didn’t mean the parent should be hovering over Junior’s shoulder, but he or she should be available to help if needed. Then, if Parent needs help lifting something, or threading a needle, or reading fine print in the phone book (remember those), that’s what Junior is for.
5. Air conditioning may not be a complete necessity, if you can roll down the windows/crack the windows/not leave living things or meltable items in your car in the summer, but I do know that it’s much less of a priority in Canada than in hotter climates. Have you ever lived outside of Canada? Just to give you a basic idea, we have six-month winters, and Australia has, essentially, six-month summers. Dolly grew up in a hotter climate. I don’t think it’s fair to judge her without walking in her shoes. I wouldn’t even compare it to living in Canada, in the winter, with a car with no heating, because people at least wear winter clothing in the winter, but when it’s 30 C outside, and hotter in your car, there’s really no getting around that.
6. When you said your dad would have given you “a shot in the yap,” I sincerely hope you just mean “hit you in the mouth.” I mean, that’s still horrible, but I was envisioning him actually shooting you with a gun.
7. Again, I still think you should look into teaching a general-interest auto repair class, at a community centre or something. Not everyone learns in high school (I was encouraged to take “solid academic” courses instead of tech courses, so I’d have a better chance of getting into university), so if you started this, you’d probably have full enrollment (of both teenagers and adults), with a waiting list. I mean, you’re right–a lot of people don’t know how to do basic car repairs, so you could be part of the solution.
bsolar,
You cannot compare a parent buying an old car to illegally dumping garbage on private property.
And the definition of a spoiled brat is someone that does not want her parents to buy her a car, because she wants them to drive her around.
Emily,
That Dolly kool aid must taste great. You can make all the excuses you want, she is still a whining ungrateful brat, that blames her parents and everyone else for all her problems. As for extreme temperatures and weather, Darlin I have worked in some weather and conditions that would hospitalize a lot of people. Don’t tell me I don’t know heat, or cold, or rain, or snow. Little Lady, you couldn’t handle some of the shit I have to do.
As for clothes, unless she is some freak of nature, there is no way her clothing cost so much she couldn’t fix the wipers on her car, or do other minor repairs.
What it comes down to is a spoiled little brat, that refused to upkeep her car, to prove a point to her mom. End of story. Only the blind cannot see that.
@Warren–About Dolly’s situation, let’s agree to disagree. About the temperatures, all I was asking was whether you’d ever lived outside of Canada, in a different climate, on the hotter end of the spectrum, since Canada is on the colder end, at least in the winter. I never said you couldn’t handle the heat or the cold, and I wasn’t going to judge you; I was just asking.
I live in the southern US where kids die in the hot cars in about 30 minutes in the heat of summer. So yeah…………
The ironic and hypocritical part about it is when not only did the window not roll down and I had no AC, but my parents said I could deal with it and they were not paying to fix it. Okay fair enough I guess.
But one week in Summer my Dad had his car in the shop for a week and wanted to save money on a rental. So he had me drive him to work and home every day. ALL he did the ENTIRE week was complain about how hot the car was.
Hypocrite. I reminded him that my mom and my Stepdad and him all stood by the statement at the time that “You don’t need the window to be fixed or the AC to be fixed.” So it was okay for me to deal with, but not them? Funny.
That is the difference between me and them. I don’t make my own kids deal with anything I would not also be willing to deal with. I think that seems fair. If I would not want to do something, I can’t make them do it. I did my homework as a kid, so they have to do theirs. I did not have to clean the entire house when I was a kid, so I am not making them do it either. My kids have not once been able to accuse me of being a hypocrite.
Dolly,
Grow up. That easy. Grow up.
You musn`t have had any friends. Because us guys in high school were always doing auto repairs for the girls. A window not going up or down back then was a $10 part at the most, and a fifteen minute repair, for any shop student back then.
Dolly, stop blaming everyone, and just take ownership, that you were an ungrateful little snit. And still are.
No, I did not have guys willing to do stuff for me like that. I was too busy with studying and working and after school stuff to spend much time with boys. I would have maybe one boyfriend for a couple months and that was it. As I already said I did not socialize much.
Which is probably how my mother wanted it. She always bragged to everyone about how her daughter is so busy studying and winning national dance championships and teaching dance and she never runs around with boys like other girls do.
So explain how that makes sense for my father to complain like a baby the entire time I was doing him a favor driving him to work every day about how hot he is and how he is dying of heat blah balh but when I ask him to get my window or ac fixed he says “no”. On what planet does that make sense?
Dolly,
On what planet does that make sense? Every freaking planet in the solar system.
Your car.
Your window.
Your AC.
You get it fixed.
How much simpler does it get.
Missing the point again. How does it make sense for him to tell me its not that bad and the heat is not that bad for me to deal with, but then when HE has to deal with it, all of a sudden its a nightmare and hes sweating and its sweltering and he is dying OMG OMG. That makes no fucking sense besides being a huge hypocrite.
If it was bearable as they told me it was, then why was he not bearing it?
So Warren, would it have been acceptable for me to refuse the car? Since it was a gift and you seem to think that once I accepted it I accepted all the responsiblity to pay for every constant repair it needed? That is like giving someone a dog with a heart condition and then refusing to help them with the vet bills. Its nuts.
So what if I said, this car is unreliable and breaks too much I don’t want it? They would have lost their minds and yelled at me and probably slapped me but I should have the right to refuse a bad gift. They could stop driving me places but then they would have to deal with me always being home and never leaving the house unless they wanted to drive me. They did not want me there all the time. They would have to accept either they drive me to dance or I can’t do it and then bye bye performing arts scholarship.
But I tried to be the good kid and drive the POS I never wanted and all I asked was when it broke, they have it fixed in a timely matter or when it breaks to come pick me up or give me a ride. But to them, that was too much to ask. Because they were just being bad parents who did not want to have to do anything with me.
They know how I feel about how they treated me and they still think they were not being bad parents in that situation, but they were.
Dolly,
So you wanted the ability to go where you wanted/needed, when you wanted/needed, but with none of the responsibility that goes along with it.
You can spin it anyway you want. You had two choices that we all do. Have a car, pay for maintenance, and get around. Or don’t use the car, don’t pay for maintenance and don’t get around. That is not abuse, being bad parents or anything like that. It is life.
You really should talk to a therapist if you equate parents giving you a car to not wanting you around.
It is called responsibility. For example the other day my oldest borrowed the SUV, as she needed the size. She was the designated driver, and by the time she got back it was extremely late. She handed me 40 bucks and apologized for not putting the gas in herself, but with a vehicle full of partiers she thought it wise to not stop, just get them home. That is responsible.
Warren: you ignore the facts I already stated. My parents made it very clear they wanted and demanded I do some kind of after school activity and job and volunteer type stuff for college applications. So if they want/demand that then they need to make that happen either by driving me or getting me a RELIABLE car to do so in. They wanted to do neither but still wanted me to have that volunteer/job/after school activity. So they were living in denial basically.
Yes, I liked to babysit and go to dance but whether I liked it or not, is not relevant. They WANTED/DEMANDED I do it anyway.
Dolly,
I understand perfectly. You wanted everything handed to you on a silver platter. Sucks to be you. Grow the hell up, Dolly. By the sounds of it you never even tried to fix or have the car fixed yourself. You actually liked every breakdown because it gave you one more thing to throw a hissy fit about.
Simply you were, and probably still are a whiney, ungrateful brat. And there is nothing you can post to change that. We have seen your self entitled attitude before, when it comes to food allergies, neighbours, and all sorts of other issues. You believe the world is to provide to you. Guess what, it doesn’t. That is life.
and you make it very clear you won’t address the actual facts I keep asking you to address such as how my parents demanded I have the job and after school activity so they would then be on the line for making sure I can get there somehow either by driving myself in a car that is functional or them driving me.
And the whole it was okay for me to be hot in the car with a window that won’t roll down and no AC but when my father had to deal with it he threw a fit the entire time about how hot it was.
And if it was so easy for the car to be fixed by a layman, why didn’t they fix it? Because they never fixed their cars themselves. They always paid a professional to do it and so again hypocritical to expect me to figure out how to fix a car when they never learned themselves either. And most of the issues the car had were complex things to fix that only a professional would know how to do. Like the transmission and the radiator. If it was so easy to fix that kind of stuff then auto shops would not be on almost every corner.
Dolly,
I did address those issues.
Fix the car and stop whining. If you do not possess the skills to fix the car, which I assume you don’t. Actually doubt you have any skills at all. But if you cannot fix it there is another very easy, very commonly used method.
1. Pick up the yellow pages.
2. Call around to repair shops.
3. Take the car in and get it fixed.
Surprisingly that is how the majority of people get their cars fixed, on a daily basis.
You on the other hand just wanted mommy and daddy to do it all for you.
Did you ever think that mommy and new daddy didn`t want you out of the house so they could be alone, but rather your attitude and personality are so irritating, they wanted you out because they couldn`t stand to have you around. That is far more likely.
Warren: then if they want me out of the house, they should have zero problem fixing my car every time it broke or buying me a car that doesn’t break at all or driving me. Makes sense. If I want my kids out of the house, I am not going to complain when I have to drive them to stay with my mother. I have enough reason to understand that is part of the process of getting what I want.
Again, fix the car with what money exactly? Or should I have offered to suck dick to fix the car? I certainly at 16 years old did not have hundreds and hundreds of dollars sitting around to pay to replace transmissions and radiators.
Or maybe I should have dropped out of school to pay for the very expensive repairs?
I mean, sure give up my entire life to pay repairs on a car I never wanted or asked for in the first place, yeah makes sense.