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Comment by ryanmarsh | Hacker News Reader

This. Lots of kids on farms learn to drive the farm truck off road as soon as their feet can touch the pedals while seeing over the steering wheel.

Any folks who grew up on a farm who can confirm?

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I didn't grow up on a farm, but my grandparents were from rural Arkansas and raised me in a small Texas town. I had plenty of opportunity to learn to drive cars on back roads and had my own dirt bikes and motorcycles by age nine. (Modern day helicopter parents would boggle at the freedom we kids had in the 70's). By the time I was twelve my grandmother retired and bought a 3.5 acre plot in rural Texas.

I wasn't allowed to fell the trees but I had to use a chainsaw and cut the branches off the felled trees and then section the denuded trees into small enough rounds they were suitable for busting into firewood with an axe. I was given the option to learn to drive my grandfather's stick shift Toyota pickup truck in order to move all the wood with that, or move it by hand. It was an easy decision.

Driving a tracktor with it's big nobbly wheels and low gear ratios along a dirt path is trivial compared to trying to coax your Honda with worn out tires up a icy hill or out of the mud. The two just don't compare.

I learned to drive a small manual shift tractor at 7 and mowed a 4 acre lawn with lots of trees and bushes. Also snowmobile and motor boat.

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