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Comment by hartator | Hacker News Reader

You have to start driving sometimes anyway, but yeah probabaly not a +$100k car.

A minivan for two years. They're safe. Then, after a couple years and their first crash, they can move up. But rich parents often aren't willing to "deprive" their children.

It's totally true, we totally expect young drivers to wreck a car early in their driving careers, and they often do, and we're totally fine with it, it's part of the course.

That mindset strikes me as completely insane to be honest (btw, I damaged my parent's car as well in my first year of driving).

Why not something like that you have to start driving for a few years with a small car (like a kei-car of some sorts), and then you can graduate to a compact. And then after six years or so, you can drive something heavy and/or fast. I would be so much more at ease in traffic, knowing that those deathtrap crossovers, trucks, and SUVs around me aren't piloted by a texting teenager.

Yeah, to paraphrase my mother, "If I thought you were going to crash it, I wouldn't let you drive it."

I actually learned to drive first on a ride-on lawn mower when I was barely heavy enough to keep the dead man switch active: hit a bump and the mower would switch off. Then I graduated to ATVs and finally to the farm pick-up truck when I was 12 or so. By the time I had a license, I was a quite capable and reasonably safe driver. Honestly, I think it may be best to learn before you are a teenager when you are still scared of the big machines.

that sounds like a great way to learn how to drive

On the other hand, my first car when I started driving was a 0.7L, 2 cylinder, 36BHP Fiat Cinquecento. That 0-60 time was probably around 2 minutes, downhill. But thinking about it now - it's a horrible car for a young driver. It had no power steering, no power brakes, no ABS, I got into several slides in winter because the wheels would just lock when breaking, no air bags, it was so underpowered that it had difficulty starting moving uphill, which led to more than one dangerous situation on the road. In contrast, modern cars have more power, sure. But they also avoid collisions automatically, they have 15+ airbags around you, they have parking sensors, dead zone sensors, traction control, hill assist and other features that make it safer and easier to drive. If I have children one day they are definitely going to drive something modern, no matter what the time to 60 is.

..or tell them if they want a car then go get a part time job and buy one.

My first car cost my £50 (and £1100 to insure..). As it was 20 year old heap of junk, every other month something would break, and I'd have to look up how to fix it and then go down to the scrap yard with a socket set, £20 in my pocket and pull that part off a scrapped car.

I learnt how to fix cars and I never had a crash because I knew it would mean certain death in that danger machine.

Even a minivan can have surprisingly high performance. A Honda Odyssey can run rings around classic sports cars.

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/articles/soccer-moms-reven...

Out of curiosity, why are minivans safe?

I don't know if there's anything inherent in their design that makes them particularly safe, but they're marketed and used as children-carriers, so safety is one of their most important features.

My parents gave me a station wagon but otherwise completely agree.

Minivans are anti-teslas. They are tippy and have almost no crumple zone. In a front impact the engine block ends up where your legs were.

If you have the money for a Tesla then you would be crazy not to put your kids in one. Ideally you would want to put it in some sort of valet mode to limit the performance.

The Tesla Model S scored 82% for adult protection and 77% for child protection in the Euroncap crash tests: http://www.euroncap.com/en/results/tesla/model-s/7897

That's quite a bit below best in class: http://www.euroncap.com/en/ratings-rewards/best-in-class-car...

If you have the money for a Tesla you then you would be crazy not to put your kids in a Volvo (if safety is your priority).

Minivans test well in safety. They are far from "anti-Teslas". If you don't like them, there are a variety of relatively safe, inexpensive vehicles from which to choose.

... and probably not with all of your friends in the car. In my state, a beginning driver can't drive with passengers who are not family members.

In my state, you're not supposed to speed and fly into fields either. (Maybe Germany has a passengers law too — the kid was ignoring other laws already.)

There are no passenger laws in Germany (not in that sense, at least). Beginning drivers would probably be drivers who are still in their probationary period (until they're 21 or have their driver's license for at least two years, whichever comes later). I am in that period, although probably more than a decade older than most such drivers, and have no restrictions as to what passengers I can take. The main point of deterrent during that period is when you break the law, you have to attend a seminar and the period lengthens by another two years. Do that twice, and you lose your license for at least three months.

An accident as this is likely the cause of driving too fast for the conditions, so that'd probably require attending such a seminar.

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