<p>Similar situation except d1 is not a new driver. She got her license at 16, so now has been driving solo almost 3 years. She did well this semester, even with 2 ecs. When she goes back to school on Monday, she will be taking a vehicle. Here’s why:</p>
<p>Although she could easily borrow mine for during the day needs, it’s a hassle for me. She has just begun physical therapy and does need to get to/from. Her bosses from her high school jobs would take her back in a heartbeat, even as a sub, so she will have gas/maintenance money. Her grades from sem one would indicate that she can handle a job. Most importantly, however, will be that next year she will begin clinical rotations. We do not have good public transportation. Asking classmates for rides all the time gets old, and they’re not always reliable. The purchase was coming within 9 months anyway.</p>
<p>Now, we could have waited until next summer, but things just worked out over the break on a purchase of a bottom of the line new vehicle. Dh will initially take the new car and d will take his old car back to campus. At least for a while. Dh really likes his current car and may want it back. Doesn’t matter. All our cars are mine. All are insured by me (because they’re mine). Doesn’t really matter to me who drives what as long as driver takes care of gas or maintenance.</p>
<p>I agree that college isn’t probably the best setting for a brand-new driver. When our son got his license it was a very graduated process (in our state they start with a learner’s permit at 15 and work their way up to a unrestricted license by 16 1/2).</p>
<p>Having said that, son has had his car at school since 2nd semester freshman year with no problems. He has at times become the driver for some of his friends without cars. He really doesn’t seem to mind it most of the time. I actually feel sorry for his roommate whose parents won’t let him have his car because he’s at everyone else’s mercy for rides. I know these parents have their reasons and I totally respect that but it does make it uncomfortable for this kid to have to be dependent on everyone else and it can be a headache for his friends. There is some public transportation since they are in an urban setting but the boys are getting ready to move off campus next week and it’s really going to be a problem if his parents don’t let him take his car back after Christmas break.</p>
<p>I really think it depends on a lot of things - how much driving experience they had, their driving history (tickets, accidents, etc), are they living in a city that has good transportation, do they live on campus, do they have an off-campus job, are they across country or did they live close enough to home that they can pop in for the weekend? </p>
<p>I personally don’t think there’s one right answer to the car/no car question. Each family must decide what’s right for their situation.</p>
<p>Great suggestion…I have a AAA Plus membership and kids have associate memberships which I renew for them. At $65/year/kid, it’s been a huge stress and moneysaver and also gives them access to the many other discounts. I never understand why other parents don’t do this (my kids get many calls to come rescue friends without AAA). AAA owns repair centers in some cities and D goes to them for all her maintenance/repairs. We’ve been very happy with the prices and service and they’re always willing to listen to the funny little noise and reassure her for free!</p>
<p>I think our daughter will take a car back to school in the fall as a senior. We have old vehicles, so sk8rmom’s suggestion sounds like a good one.</p>
<p>Ordinarylives…your daughter has some good reasons to take a car back with her. I didn’t hear the OP voice the same “needs” as your daughter’s. In the OP’s case, this sounds more like a want…than a need. Plus as noted…brand new driver.</p>
<p>One thing we learned from other parents: if you are going to have your kid pay for at least part of the expense associated with a car, have them pay for their own insurance. That gives them a huge incentive to drive safely avoiding accidents and tickets. And, if they do get in an accident or get a ticket, they suffer the consequences of increased insurance directly. Personally, we like being the ones that “own” the car, because then we control the car. Further, having a kid pay for repairs/maintenance can be difficult as it’s not always predictable/manageable.</p>
<p>School schedules and activities weren’t conducive to my son working during summers in high school, so we had him babysit for his younger siblings (while his father and I worked full time), and we paid him. All of those “earnings” essentially went right back to funding his car insurance, but he felt like it was his money, and I was also able to point out that there wouldn’t be enough summer babysitting hours available to cover any increased car insurance premiums. </p>
<p>One other consideration for taking a car to school…when we called our insurance company and indicated he’d be away at school without a car, his car insurance dropped from $800 to $400 for a 6 month period.</p>
<p>It sounds reasonable for your D to want a car considering where/how she lives. You could require she pay her insurance from summer jobs and future part time jobs during the school year. But I do agree with alwaysamom that your D may be still too inexperienced a driver: perhaps revisit the car buying issue until after next summer - by which time she may accumulate a bit more experience behind the wheel?</p>
<p>DS had a car sophomore year on, mostly for the convenience of driving himself home. He was a good driver, no tickets or accidents. He rarely drove on campus because he was at a small school in a medium city with great bus service. We made him pay for his gas, which required him to have a small part-time job. Jr year he was abroad, so the car stayed home. He generally refused to be the “driver of friends” because he was poor and didn’t want to use <em>his</em> gas.</p>
<p>DD12 won’t have a car on campus freshman year. We feel it is best to stay at school, take advantage of school activities and meet the students who are there on weekends.</p>
<p>We own the cars and we control their usage. Both kids know we can pull the privilege at any time due to accidents, tickets, points on the license so they are quite responsible drivers. We have AAA for both of them. With our son in NY now, he was able to call them when he got a flat tire. No worry.</p>
<p>To the OP, our kids were not allowed to drive out of town for 2 months and no passengers other than siblings for 2 months when they first got their licenses. DS got grounded for 2 addl months for breaking the passenger rule. Did not happen again. DD is more compliant. In your situation, our DD would not get a car on campus. Too dangerous not only for your daughter driving in very unfamiliar territory, but also for passengers and other drivers to be potential victims of her inexperience.</p>
<p>Another vote for No as it sounds like a convenience rather than a need.</p>
<p>For a new driver, especially in the winter in the midwest? No, no, no, no.
Bored on weekends? Encourages unnecessary driving looking for fun.<br>
Fun city couple of hours away? I’d look for reasons to keep my kid from driving 2 hours away to a fun city.</p>
<p>If I were you, I’d consider it a great excuse to go visit my kid once a month, take her to lunch and do a Target run. We try to do it at least once a year and my kid is across the country I also like sending care packages periodically with contact lens solutions etc.</p>
<p>We have 3 vehicles and 3 drivers including college kid so he effectively has his own vehicle. It is our car, not his officially and we pay for everything. Has been driving independently 2+ years, very cautious driver, never had any tickets/accidents (knock on wood) but we would still not let him have a car on campus under the circumstances you cite. </p>
<p>Car accidents are the leading cause of death and injury to teens. The risk is highest with new drivers and teens with other teens in the car. Encouraging unnecessary driving by giving unsupervised unlimited unfettered access is not a good idea.</p>
<p>The issue of who pays what is probably going to be another one with no universal answers. Insurance depends, for example, on how much coverage one wants to carry and the kind of car provided. Might also depend on how much cash you ask the student to put toward other school expenses. We initially asked d to pay for the increase in insurance, but then decided to hand her some other bills instead, some that she can pay directly. </p>
<p>Kids need skin in the game, and, I feel, it really ought to be immediate. They need to be paying bills right now with their own money. How we decide what bills a kid has to cover is up to us as parents.</p>
<p>Both my S’s took trucks to college as freshmen. They each got their Learner’s Permit the day they turned 15 so had a good 3.5 years of driving experience before college.<br>
I guess it was a convenience but if they had not taken them, the trucks would have been sitting in our driveway blocking the garage and driving us crazy. DH and I both took cars to college as freshman so it was not a big decision. Also both our kids chose instate public u’s. in the south so no real bad weather to worry about and both boys were pretty handy with changing tires/oil changes, dealing with mechanics,etc</p>
<p>I think it would have been a harder decision if they had not had a lot of driving experience.</p>
<p>My son, now a sophomore, has had our oldest car at school since his freshman year. He has had his license since he was sixteen and uses his car primarily to drive to his music lessons about 20 miles from campus, since his music teacher was laid off in the recent rounds of budget cuts. This spring he will need a car to drive to his off-campus volunteer work.</p>
<p>Although I trusted both his driving experience and his judgement, I was very reluctant to have him bring a car as a freshman, but it has worked out well for all of us. His campus is about 90 miles from our home, so it saves us from having to drive him to and from school.</p>
<p>Probably the clincher was when our AAA agent told me our rates would go DOWN if DS brought his car to campus! Even though the car would just be sitting in our driveway, the rates in our area are more expensive than they are in his college town. Since the campus is within 500 miles of our home and we have as many cars as drivers, he is considered a full time driver.</p>
<p>The best thing we ever did was sign him for a free session with Driver’s Edge, a teen-driving safety program taught by current and former race car drivers. This hands-on program tours several major cities across the country and has made a tremendous impact on my son and his friends.</p>
<p>I agree that the issue is new driver. D1 has a car at school which she uses to drive carpool for her sports team, and endless runs to Target and the grocery store. She had been driving herself to HS everyday (about 30 minutes away) for 2 years, so she had solid experience before taking a car 100s of miles away. Also, she paid for the car herself - 100k miles 5 year-old SUV. We pay insurance.</p>
<p>I have 2 kids in different types of schools in different parts of the country (large flagship U and small isolated LAC). Neither have a car. Both would like one, but when I do the math, it makes no sense and neither “need” one. The one at an isolated LAC can rent a zip car but often borrows a friend’s car. At S’s large flagship, there is free public transportation and the traffic is terrible. It’s not the cost of the car, but insurance, upkeep, and gas which nickel and dime you.</p>
<p>My d, in her first year in college, got a car for her 18th birthday, right before she left for college. She has been driving for 3 years (one as a learner, two on her own right). I wouldn’t get your daughter a car now since she is a brand new driver. Mine hasn’t had one ticket, one accident, and doesn’t drink. She goes to school 3 hours away and needed it for the travel back and forth and even more so for the pharmacy runs she needs to make. My d is not paying for insurance right now though she pays for gas out of allowance and any earnings she makes. That is because we told her not to get a job first semester so she wouldn’t be overwhelmed at college.</p>
<p>My kids also have not had a lot of driving experience. Unfortunately, they live in a city that is built around cars & doesn’t have good transportation. We offered to ship S a car when we bought a new one in his SR year, so he could go to interviews, etc. He was responsible for ALL costs once we shipped the car to him–insurance, AAA, gas, maintenance, parking. When D wanted to drive his car, we told her she’d have to assume those costs if she wanted to drive it–she declined & left it in storage. </p>
<p>D is now a SR & we’ve told her the same thing–she’ll have to assume costs IF she is going to have a car, which she’ll need for interviews, etc. Even tho both kiddos have had their licenses for a while, I’m not in any hurry for them to have cars–so many distractions with drivers who haven’t had a lot of miles under their belts.</p>
<p>In retrospect, I probably should have had them drive more when they lived in HI. They do NOT drive as much as I’d like them to and so don’t have that much experience driving–with and without passengers. S has become a pretty good driver, tho he has been rear-ended twice in the past 9 months. </p>
<p>I’d want any college driver to have a lot of experience/miles under their belt BEFORE a car is available to them. It’s just not all that safe for them to be driving (especially with passengers who may be talking/distracting) and in a city where they don’t know the roads all that well.</p>
<p>I think the answer to all the elements of this is “it depends.”
I agree that if the D is not an experienced driver, it would be better to wait.
But I don’t agree that all kids need “skin in the game” financially in order to make them drive responsibly. Some kids are pretty responsible anyway.
And a lot depends on the college–how many other kids have cars, what there is to do on and off campus, what the parking situation is. Having a car may be a necessity for a few, a great convenience for others, a luxury for most, and a big annoyance for some.
If it’s a luxury, then it seems to me that you can decide as a family whether you’d like to provide that luxury in the same way you decide about other luxuries.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t want my kids to go away to college without them having their own transportation, however, if I were in the OP’s situation I wouldn’t send a new driver off to navigate a college campus! This is all a good reason to teach those kids to drive sooner rather than later. I know it is expensive (I have two boys, so I well know), but several of my friends’ kids didn’t drive until they were halfway through college and went immediately from new license to long road trips. That seems so dangerous to me!</p>
<p>One senior, 3 k miles away, one freshman, 400 miles away, both experienced drivers, neither have the 15 year old car they share at school. Both have access to zip cars and school bus service, but both seem to ride with others.</p>
I also like sending care packages periodically with contact lens solutions etc.</p>