<p>My D is just finishing up first year and has said she wants to take her car up for next year. I have many reservations - she has no clue how to drive in ice and snow, I would have to add her back to the policy as a driver (not just insure the car) and I don't want to!!!, and frankly, I can't see how useful having a car would really be. I guess she would be able to go to Whole Foods whenever she wants and actually go to Natick when she needs things - she has not used the campus shuttle for Natick this year - think it's either too time consuming for a short errand or just a pain. She might also use it to drive herself and other teammates to the coach's house, Babson practices and other team related outings in and around Wellesley.</p>
<p>Since I don't really want her to take her car, and I know the public transportation into and around Boston is excellent, I am looking for any other good reasons to pad my case. Any experiences - especially if you brought your car and regretted it.</p>
<p>I completely understand your concerns. Boston-area drivers can be extremely aggressive; many of the roads are old, narrow, congested, and poorly marked; the winter weather can be terrible. My daughter is considering bringing her car next year, and I strongly recommended that she never use it except to drive away from, not toward, the city of Boston. My D is a pretty experienced driver for her age and has driven a lot in the NYC metropolitan area. I consider Boston to be a much more challenging driving environment than what she is used to.</p>
<p>There is also the issue of being the person everyone knows who has a car on campus. People will be asking your D for transportation favors. She has the right to set limits on when and how she uses her car. If she is assertive enough to do that, then it’s not a problem; but it can be an issue for some. It’s hard to say no to your friends.</p>
<p>Even with all of this, my D may end up bringing her car. We’ll see. I told her she’d have to pay for gas and maintenance. It may not be worth the cost to her.</p>
<p>I think you have made your case against having her car right here!: “…she has no clue how to drive in ice and snow, I would have to add her back to the policy as a driver (not just insure the car) and I don’t want to…” </p>
<p>As a native of a northern state with a decades of experience driving on snow, (and where we just got 12+ inches of snow yesterday–on May 1st!!!) I can tell you that I personally would not want to drive in snow in Boston, let alone experience it for the first time as a (relatively) inexperienced driver!</p>
<p>Seriously though, my daughter is just finishing up her sophomore year without a car and has not appeared to suffer unduly as a result. She has some friends/teammates with cars and she can put out a request for a ride to Target, etc. and usually a group of them will make a trip every couple of weeks or so. There is also some type of car share/rental service available on campus (I’ve seen the cars in a parking lot there, but I can’t recall the name or any other details) which she could use on occasion and I bet it would be less expensive than insuring a car and adding her back as a driver.</p>
<p>But I think your strongest argument is that it’s not <em>her</em> car, in that she is not paying for insurance (I assume), and maybe not even for gas. That, coupled with the difficulty in dealing with possible mechanical problems, etc. from long-distance would make this a very easy call for me–as evidenced by our DD’s lack of car on campus!</p>
<p>I graduated from Wellesley a few years ago and had my car on campus for a year and a half (so no promises any of this is 100% accurate - but what really is on College Confidential?). I’m from Minnesota, so I knew how to drive in the weather. I think having a car is a mixed bag: you don’t really need it because there’s the ZipCar if you want to go to Target or the grocery store, but it can be handy to have. In my day, we had a way of advertising that we were available to give rides to the airport and other places. I ended up funding my semester abroad by giving rides to the airport (I made $600 over Thanksgiving weekend alone). That said, if it were me, I’d encourage her to sign up for ZipCar and learn to drive in the weather/Boston craziness (Route 9 taught me many things about driving in eastern Mass) and see if she still wants to have a car later on. </p>
<p>Parking also blows for non-seniors - seniors park in the Davis Garage, but underclasswomen are out beyond the sports center in an open-air lot, about a 10 minute walk even from the Quad/Quint dorms. A window scraper and a shovel are necessities!</p>
<p>It’s been some time since I graduated from Wellesley, but I had a car on campus for a year and it was a mixed bag.</p>
<p>Coming from below the Mason Dixon line where we only occasionally had plowable snowfalls (and then the entire region freaked out), I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t drive in snow/ice. I wasn’t used to it and the old beater car I had (which I had purchased from a graduating senior) wasn’t really equipped for it. Also, when I first started driving, I was appalled - APPALLED - by the state of roads and signage in MA. I just wasn’t used to the narrow, windy, and pot-holed roads. Also, road signage is terrible. Straight out. I remember one time missing a turn because the road sign was located just AFTER the exit, as opposed to before. If your daughter easily panics when she drives, MA driving will not be easy. Of course, with GPS systems available now, maybe this is a moot point, but I’d still contend that GPS doesn’t solve all the navigation issues. There are many many places around here where if you’re not in the correct lane, you can end up driving to a completely different location than your original destination. Again, it would be a great boon if your daughter has a fairly developed sense of navigation and can handle herself in a safe manner when driving directions go awry. If she tends to be someone who cuts lanes sharply or makes aggressive turns to avoid missing an exit (as opposed to driving by it, finding a safe place to turn around, and driving back to make the original turn), I’d be hesitant to have her driving here. There’s a reason why drivers here are referred to as M*******s.</p>
<p>On the positive side, having a car did give me greater freedom in obtaining babysitting jobs. This was the biggest financial boon for me. However, given the insurance, gas, and maintenance costs (I had a 12+ yr old car) for which I was completely responsible, the cons outweighed the pros. I gave up the car after that year.</p>
<p>If ZipCar had been available when I was a student, I would definitely have gone with that option!</p>
<p>The snow and ice comment is a bit of a red herring issue for me … there are a handful of days each year where winter driving skills are needed.</p>
<p>The bigger ticket item is the cost … I’m not a big believer in telling my college age kids what they can and can’t do … but I do decide what I want to subsidize. In other words place all the costs of the car on your daughter (car, insurance, and cost of any accidents or tickets) and it likely will swing her vote. </p>
<p>PS - personally the Zip Car idea sounds good to me … although I’m not sure how that would work with insurance. We totally remove our kids from our insurance when they are at school … so there would need to be a very low frequency driving insurance rate for the Zip Car thing to work for our kids.</p>
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