I never had a car of my own until I graduated from college. I was the 5th driver in a one car family. I had two kids who didn’t have cars until they graduated from college (one has one, one doesn’t). Our one car when they were in high school had a manual transmission and one learned to drive it and the other didn’t, but I took it to work every day. Couldn’t afford other cars and insurance.
You have a choice to buy your own car or figure out other ways to get around. My kids had a school bus and when they didn’t like that they had friends who would drive them. We lived 4 miles from their school so there were a ton of kids driving right by our house every morning.
Don’t know OP situation, but school busses aren’t always a practical solution. I live less than 10 minutes from our grade school and middle school, but the way the bus routes work it would require an hour on the bus each way. I don’t know about HS for certain but it is probably worse. Also no EC’s, because you aren’t making any before school meetings or after school meetings/practices. They legally have to provide them, but honestly I think ours are made intentionally inconvenient to cut down on numbers. Plus I don’t remember the cost but I was surprised how much the district charges for us to ride the bus.
Bumming rides or maybe a bicycle could work if the distance is managable. I had a friend who bought a cheap motorcycle to drive to school because his parents wouldn’t help him with transportation and it was all he could afford. He survived taking a motorcycle to school on icy roads, which isn’t a great idea but sometimes you do what you have to.
If the car has to go, maybe you driving it is a better solution for dad. I like the idea of buying a car from them, and if you can combine that with getting a job they may be able to see it as a cost neutral or even positive solution for the family.
Agree, and the OP framing of this as a “getting to school” problem seems far-fetched. The real goal, as near as I can tell, is getting additional verbal ammo to convince the parents into letting the OP keep his or her loaner car.
@apfailsstudent Do you know the names of your dad’s collectable cars? (Unlikely to include a “FBDO” Ferrari 250GT California for real, since those sell for $8M+.)
But @dadof4kids not every kid has alternatives to the school bus or shoe leather. My kids had to take the school bus (which did add 30 minutes to the commute) or get rides, or go to school very early or stay late (my schedule). They didn’t have enough money to buy a car and I didn’t have an extra car. If I would have paid for a car and insurance, they wouldn’t have needed to worry about ECs as there would have been no extra money for sports, theater, school trips, etc. Insurance for each of them would have been $3000 per year, and for us that was college money. Yep, their friends had cars (some brand new shiny ones) and guess what? Most of them didn’t go to college.
Perhaps these parents are making the same decision, that having kids drive cars is too expensive.
To paraphrase more vintage movies, sounds like the OP needs to befriend Mr. Miyagi…
how friendly is your parents with the neighbors who might have kids who have a kid(s) who attend the same HS? Surely there must be a neighbor that would be willing to take you home, unless you live on some farm?
How much is Uber/Lyft from your house to school?
Agree that not everyone is can afford a car, but if you want EC’s in many schools, the bus isn’t really an option either.
And it sounds like shoe leather may not be either. My kids would have to walk about 4 miles for Elementary and MS, and 10 miles for the HS, obviously that doesn’t work. For GS and MS EC’s aren’t as big a deal, and fortunately for me Mom had a schedule and location that allowed for Elementary and MS pickup.
Not really much is happening. My dad hasn’t posted any of his cars for sale yet. It doesn’t seem to be a problem for most families that there isn’t a school bus because my city is one where it’s a mixture of rich international students that drive BMWs and working class immigrant families (but protective) that drop their students off at school. For those asking, my dad has so many cars that I don’t know their exact models but here are some:
-Volkswagen Beetle (1972?) idk it’s rusted, the paint is chipped, there’s holes in the flooring, and the engine leaks gas. He bought it for $500 like 2 years ago
-Mercedes (W116?) sedan from the 80s but the turn signals don’t work and the heater won’t turn off
-Ford F250 truck that is just really old and musty
-Some 1980s BMW that he bought a few years ago that broke down on the freeway last month
-Porsche Boxster from the 1970s that is really dull and dented. Paint is faded and tbh I’ve never seen him drive it.
In return for your forthcomingness, tell your parents that if they have put up with having all these cars for so long, OF COURSE they can leave one of them for you to drive to school. Good luck!