<p>The real title of this new thread is "Desperately seeking advice on how helicopter mom can survive sending child who has done almost no driving for 4 years on a 2000+ mile road trip all by himself." Kid will undoubtedly be just fine.</p>
<p>Here is the situation: DS has not needed a car during the undergraduate years. There will now be the necessity for a transition from no car to taking complete responsibility for car care, driving in paradise to facing midwestern winters, and a maximum driving trip of 1 1/2 hours to the 30+ hour trip through mountains and valleys to get to the new school. </p>
<p>DS will have the car over the summer, but that obviously will not prepare him to drive in snow. </p>
<p>Do graduate students change their licenses and the registration on the car when attending school in another state?
Do you recommend keeping the title of the car joint with a parent? </p>
<p>The move is from Los Angeles (and San Diego) California to Chicago, Illinois. S will attend Roosevelt University's Chicago College of Performing Arts. DS also needs to know where to find an apartment in Chicago that has a reasonable commute to Roosevelt U. </p>
<p>I know that I am being ridiculous, but I admit to being very nervous about this trip. </p>
<p>Thank you for any ideas that helped you survive your 21-year-old's transition to adulthood.</p>
<p>“I know that I am being ridiculous”
Yes you are. Your son is going to be in GRAD school for crying out loud!. He is now a 21 year old ADULT, yes?? He is long past old enough to know how to ask all the “how to” questions himself. I strongly suggest you back off and let him figure it out or find out for himself. He can consult with you if he has questions, if need be. And let him know you have the confidence in him to find the answers. Then start believing it.</p>
<p>I don’t think you are being foolish, by any means. I felt same way about Son, so I hired a car transport company to move car across country.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, state law requires him to register in state, and insurance company will gladly shift. (but S lost Title, procrastinates, hates taking time off from work to go to DMV, etc). I wasn’t allowed to keep car under my name.</p>
<p>Oh dear–read menloparkmom’s post. Sounds good, but doesn’t fit my kid. We’re on 5th month, and car still not registered in state in which S is working. At 21, I bought a stick shift car in CA and drove to MA, learning how to shift along the way. I’m a different person than S is. Operamom knows her cub best, and what he can handle.</p>
<p>We considered driving together across country, but my back would never make even one day of driving. Hotels, food, loss of my income, etc., made the transport service best option.</p>
<p>operamom- Keep your fears to yourself. Your adult son will do fine and doesn’t need you obsessing about how he will cope with driving long distances in inclement weather. Have confidence in your son. Accidents will happen with or without you predicting disaster at every snowflake.</p>
<p>If you want to be helpful, help him plan out an absolutely fantastic roadtrip across the country. I’ve driven from coast to coast three times now and each one has been better than the last!</p>
<p>Going from San Diego to Chicago he’ll have the ability to see some of the best scenery this country has to offer. Definitely be sure to go through southern Utah and Colorado. If he can take the extra day, I-90 through South Dakota is about a million times better than I-80 just south of it.</p>
<p>To make yourself (and possibly him!) feel better, why not provide the gift of a GPS (the various Garmin Nuvi models are nice, and some are under $200). You won’t be as concerned that he’ll get off-route, and a lot of them tell you the nearest hotel, place to eat or (importantly) place to get gas. He’ll use it in Chicago too. I know I feel better knowing my kids are out with a GPS (and, when they’re local, can always push the “home” button!)</p>
<p>My question is, why is kid bringing car to Chicago? There is no place to park around Roosevelt that won’t cost him a bundle so he won’t be able to drive to school. What else could he need a car for in a city with an lots of public transportation and taxis galore? I didn’t get a car until I was 30 and moved out to the 'burbs. Maybe he should rethink the whole idea.</p>
<p>Are you certain he even wants a car in Chicago? As someone who works in NYC and went to school in Philly, a car can be more of a hassle than its worth. Inexpensive apartments may not have indoor parking. Think digging car out. This may be me sticking my noise in where it doesnt belong, but if school is accessible by public transportation, he may be better off taking the L to school (and it certainly can take him to all fun stuff, pt time work, etc.) Is this program in Chicogo or the Shaumberg campus?</p>
<p>Hi operamom,
My DS#1 is a grad student in Chicago and does not have a car and does not need one. There is ample public transportation. However, he did switch over his driver’s license to his Illinois address because he occasionally makes use of a “zipcar.” (Google the term if you are not familiar with it.) Chicago winters can be brutal and parking at a premium. Unless he has an indoor space, he’s going to spend a lot of time “digging out” after the snowstorms. And that’s assuming he can even find on-street parking. </p>
<p>Does Roosevelt have information on it’s web site re: suggested student housing? If not, I’m sure he could contact a number of current students and find out where his best options are.</p>
<p>Edit: I checked out their web site, and they are right in Chicago, not at the suburban Schaumberg campus. Is there a particular reason he thinks he needs a car in Chicago?</p>
<p>Well, one thing is for sure – your son will have more than 2000 miles more experience driving by the time he gets to Chicago! </p>
<p>I can certainly understand your being nervous, and frankly, I’d be nervous if I lived in Chicago, knowing your offspring had no experience driving on snow and was out there driving on the same roads I was on! We get enough people like that in DC, and it can be pretty annoying! (The plus side for Chicago: the city knows how to deal with snow. Not so here!)</p>
<p>BUT… everyone who needs to drive on snow regularly learns to drive on it, and a young man who has a lot of good experience driving, as driving to Chicago will be, will figure it out. Plus, the other drivers there are skilled snow drivers; I’d be much more worried if they were ALL recent transplants from southern CA!! :D</p>
<p>There continue to be many moments when we fear for our adult children. But by the time they hit grad school it’s truly time to keep that fear to ourselves. I might suggest as I would to a friend that some lessons on driving in snow might be helpful, but I’d leave it at that.</p>
<p>I thank every one of you for your responses. I am trying to move toward menloparkmom and batlo’s attitude, but bookworm’s kid could be mine. Last year, driver’s license and passport were both allowed to lapse (no time in crowded schedule) and S had nothing but his student card for identification. That will never happen again, I believe, but who knows what’s next. Sending the car is definitely an attractive option–we will look into it.</p>
<p>The GPS idea is excellent. So is revisiting the need for a car in the first place. S’s program is at the Chicago campus. He will be working and will need transportation to take advantage of workshop and audition opportunities, but CCPA is right in the middle of the arts action, so he will ask current students if a car is necessary or more trouble than it’s worth. </p>
<hr>
<p>I just saw the posts by owlice and momof3sons, and you are certainly right about the snow. I grew up in Denver and we lived in Ithaca, NY (where we did need a car), and you are right on about digging out after snowstorms. The case for a car in Chicago is shrinking. </p>
<p>As for drivers unfamiliar with the weather, in SoCAL, our fear is the out-of-area driver who has had no experience with the oil-slick roads during our rare rainstorms. They think it is “only” raining and drive at or above the speed limit to their frequent dismay or worse. I really like the idea of driving lessons for snow safety. If we ever moved back to a place with winter, I would take them as a precaution myself. </p>
<p>If he does take a car, I love RacinReaver’s idea–he can plan a wonderful trip, and it will be something to remember forever.</p>
<p>Back in the “dark ages” (1970s), my dad drove himself to college his freshman year. He was originally from Massachusetts, and drove by himself (well, he was accompanied by 2 female friends, but no adults) to college in Colorado. This was undergrad, not grad, and obviously he turned out okay. operamom, I understand that you are nervous, but your son is not the first to make a trip by himself. </p>
<p>Driving lessons in the snow might not be a bad idea, though.</p>
<p>Keep the car registered at your address so the Chicago tickets come direct to you. They double in 14 days if not paid. You can pay on line. Three unpaid tickets and the car gets booted. most ticket can cost 90 to 120 dollars but those red light camera tickets cost 200 dollars. and the pictures are so detailed you can see what earings you were wearing that day. Most tickets are up on the net in a day or two so you can also do a regular maintenance check now and then, 5 tickets and he looses the drivers license. My daughter friend did a science projectin 4th grade and timed the meters in chicago…all were short so you will get tickets because it is rigged. Traffic in chiago is not like LA or NY. I just got pulled over in NYC the other day and he cop let me go!!! what a shock. That is not allowed to happen in Chicago. They are all on camera so if they stop they must follow all the rules.
But on the good side…chicago drivers are better than thn any other larger city…especially NYC</p>
<p>Right there, Theresa and operamom, I would ditch that car! It it totally true about the “El” (elevated and underground transportation) and buses. I don’t think he would need a car much even for workshops and so forth. And ZIP cars are a VERY cool idea and just set up for him–for a reasonable fee one joins the ZIP car network, and then one has access to cars by the hour, or day, for one’s occasional needs. But those tickets–oh my! I lived in Chicago 25 years ago, with a boyfriend downtown, and I spent a lot of time in court protesting parking tickets…ah memories. It sounds like things are far stricter now. WAY too much hassle for a grad student, to have a car.</p>
<p>When I graduated from college a friend of mine and I had a grant to photograph firestations all over the country for a year. One little hitch. I didn’t drive. I learned to drive that summer and in September we took off on our road trip - driving down the east coast, then out to CA, up the west coast and back across the middle of the country. I don’t know how my parents did it. I do remember the last thing my Dad said to me was “Don’t drive too slow.” We had some moments - burnt out headlights, windshield wiper motors dying, but nothing serious ever happened. I think the worst thing I did was back into someone’s mailbox and that was on the return leg when I should have known better. It was one of the best experiences of my life - I’d love to do it again.</p>
<p>1]ditch the driving the car to Chicago idea completely and have the insurance changed to reflect that it will be driven fewer than 90 days a year in Calif- your insurance costs for that car should drop like a stone.
2]As others have said, having a car in Chicago is unnecessary in a city with more than adequate public transportartion.</p>
<p>Also, you can now get booted after two parking tickets. Since 9/11 street parking in the loop (where Roosevelt is) has been greatly reduced and what remains has meters that now are run by a private firm and cost, I think, $3.00+ per hour. Parking garages are extremely expensive. I would guess that anywhere your s has to audition would be reachable by public transportation.</p>