As an outsider, the concept of high schools having massive parking lots specifically for students is mind-blowing. Is it really that common for 16-year-olds to drive themselves to school every day?

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ladyphoenix62@reddit

For the most part, yes. Not many places have reliable public transportation and, in rural areas, the school can be miles away down back roads with no place to walk safely. I grew up up in Chicago and always took the city bus but for my kids in Texas, that wasn’t an option.

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thankyoufriendx3@reddit

Yes in rural and suburban areas.

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n00bdragon@reddit

Teens rarely buy the cars themselves. The more common scenario is the car is a hand-me-down or low budget used car. Some rich parents go all out and buy their kids fancy cars but this is the minority and most people think that's a very extravagant or wasteful thing to do as the kid is probably going to crash it.

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glowybutterfly@reddit

The car I drove was my dad's old car, and it was considered the kids' car, not just mine. My siblings and I all learned to drive on it. My elder sibling dropped me off at school when I didn't have a bus available. Otherwise, we took turns using it. And sometimes I'd drive my mom's car instead, if one of my siblings had the kids' car that day.

I can find a used 2010 Corolla for about $5K.

Sorry, she's learning to drive at what age?

I assume she was 10 a few years ago and you aren't teaching a literal 10 year old to drive?

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popopotatoes160@reddit

Although that person replied about their daughter being 15, I can corroborate the other commenter that in rural areas children that young somewhat commonly learn to drive vehicles on private property for farm chores, hunting, etc.

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zeezle@reddit

I learned to drive around that age, normal where I grew up. (Not on public roads)

Actually my first driving experience when I was 10 was being put in one of those farm trucks that are 4 different colors because other trucks got cannibalized for parts. Told to go do a task in the back acreage alone, “just don’t hit anything” and “you’ve seen your mother drive, just do that and you’ll be fine”. Then sent off alone through the fields. It was fine but if it were my truck I think I’d at least want to supervise a bit!

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Xylophelia@reddit

She’s currently 15.

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HanShotF1rst226@reddit

This was the loose plan when I got a new car (a Toyota) when I was with my exhusband. I realized if I maintained it my stepson (then 5) would be able to drive it when he was a teenager. This was in 2014 and I literally just replaced that car this week (still drives, just got a deal I couldn’t pass up for a newer vehicle). I was right, if we’d stayed together his kid could have driven it!

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vi_sucks@reddit

"Middle class" means very different things to different people.

Bought my own in 1993. $500 that I borrowed from my grandpa, and paid back with minimal intrest, so I could learn how lending worked.) I needed to get to work. I covered gas & maintenance, my parents put me on their insurance.

I got my mom’s old car when I could start driving. I didn’t have to pay for the car as it was fully paid off, and she got a new car. Insurance and gas and maintenance were my responsibility, so I worked during the summer and on weekends at a farm. I had been driving earlier before having a regular license with a farm license, but only the farm trucks and tractors (there’s other restrictions I don’t remember, distance from farm? Only official business?).

But yes, I drove myself to school everyday the last two years of high school.

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Avelsajo@reddit

There are pockets of upper-middle class people around my area, but nothing crazy, and some of the local high schoolers drive huge jacked-up trucks, Teslas, and other waaaaay-too-expensive-for-a-teenager cars. My first car was a used Honda Accord. And I wrecked it, of course. Like most teens do.

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AliMcGraw@reddit

Yes, we're in the process of looking for a used beater for my high school junior who will be taking some classes at the local community college next year and will need to drive himself. We're trying to balance the question of cost, insurance costs, safety, and gas mileage. It's a bit of a nightmare.

We'll keep our kids on our insurance through the end of college, and probably pay for routine maintenance so they don't skip it, but they'll be expected to pay for gas and for any repairs needed because they drove like idiots.

(We deliberately live close enough to the high school so they can bike to it, because that student parking lot is insane and dangerous as hell. Bikes have nice covered bike parking near the tennis courts where they can escape the school without going near the student parking lot.)

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Heykurat@reddit

My first car was a salvage title 76 Pinto with a cheap paint job. Once I proved I could drive responsibly, I got my mom's old car when she bought another.

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catswithbatsandhats@reddit

Right, my first car was a 1980 Honda Accord (in the early 00s) that my mom paid $100/week for 10 weeks for. When it blew up because I was an irresponsible teen the guy who sold it to her bought it back for $500 because he could fix it and sell it again.

Kingsolomanhere@reddit

When we got out of college in 1978 my wife and I bought a brand new 4 door hatchback Chevy Chevette with 4 miles on it for 3400(monthly payments of course). That's about 17,000 today. Drove it until 150,000 miles and gave it to a college kid up the road who lost both parents (and the only family car) in a car wreck. He was still driving that thing when we sold our house in 1990

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Pete_Iredale@reddit

This was true all the way into the 2000s. Cash for Clunkers fucked up the used car market, then chip shortages during and after Covid made it even worse.

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Kingsolomanhere@reddit

Yeah, cash for clunkers just made it harder for young and poor people. Politicians rarely understand the big picture

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Realistic-Feature997@reddit

The big picture for the politicians was forcing people to buy new cars to prop up auto manufacturing.

Cash for Clunkers' effect is drastically overstated. It scrapped just under 700,000 cars over two months in 2009 - that sounds like a lot, but there were 35.6 million used car sales in 2009 (plus another 10ish million new.) That means that, even if every single Cash for Clunkers shitbox was otherwise destined to be sold in 2009, it removed a grand total of 2% of the used car market for one year. And most of the cars that got turned in were not late-model Camrys, they were 20 year old minivans and beat-up SUVs that barely worked on a good day.

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Myfourcats1@reddit

I remember when one of the high schools raised the fee for the parking pass. I don’t remember the exact numbers but think from $5 to $25. People were very angry. They protested by riding the bus or parking in the neighborhood next to the school. Fun fact. Your school doesn’t have enough busses for everyone. They lowered the fee after a very short time.

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Honeybee3674@reddit

Agreed. But also, keep in mind that the giant parking lots aren't just for student drivers during the school day. Some suburban high schools have enormous auditoriums, aquatic centers, stadiums, etc. that may be used for both the school and wider community use. The parking spots will get filled/overflowing for sports or other extra-curricular or community events.

Patient-Ad-7939@reddit

My high school had a pretty big parking lot, and it was mostly full by the end of the school year with student parking. That lot never got even half full when we had events at the school, including football games. But it was a rural high school serving suburban and rural homes. Most juniors and seniors drove, and then lots of the sophomores would get a parking permit when they got their restricted license at 15 1/2 (could get permit at 15, then restricted license 6 months later) and so the parking lot would have more cars at the end of the school year than it did at the beginning since so many sophomores would start driving too.

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IntroductionKindly33@reddit

My school's student parking lot is the visitor parking for the football stadium (small town in Texas- football is king). So there's plenty of parking for the students who drive. It's just across the street from the high school, so easy access.

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AliMcGraw@reddit

Our local symphony (suburban, small, and mainly music professors from the local university) plays at the high school's auditorium, 8 concerts a year. It's also rented by local synagogues on the high holy days when all the prairie dog Jews pop up.

Assistant principals tend to handle student issues, logistics/coordination of a wide range of things.

They all handle parent communication (though you typically go to an assistant principal first for anything), and they all split supervision duties.

He would play a song (on cassette then) and I would be like- oh, youre playing that song, then i’ll play this song.

What's wild is learning about the public transit that used to exist in rural America (well, rural-ish, I'm talking small towns not isolated ranches).

Plenty of tiny towns, often even tinier then, had streetcar systems, busses, a train station, etc.

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rhino369@reddit

Tiny towns don't need street cars and I'm pretty skeptical that was ever common. But they did often have (or actually grew around) a train station.

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anonymouse278@reddit

Tiny towns, no, but towns with much smaller populations than you would expect supported extensive public transit in the past. I live in a small city and it had an a streetcar system that at one point meant nobody in town was more than a few blocks from a line through the second half the 19tb century and the first half of the 20th. It had less than a quarter of the population then than it does now. They got rid of street cars here in the late forties and didn't really replace them with anything- we have a theoretical bus system, but service is so sparse and unreliable that nobody depends on it if they have any alternative. We have a lot of railroads but lost passenger rail service some time ago as well.

I think pretty often about how my residential neighborhood, which is just far enough from the city center to make walking there impracticable (especially in the very hot summers) used to be so much more tightly connected to the rest of the city and even the rest of the state.

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turdferguson3891@reddit

Because when those were first built there were no cars. The only practical way to get from town to town was by rail unless you wanted to go horse and buggy which took a lot longer. Since those towns were built without cars in mind they were very walkable. Every little town had a main street where all the stores were. All the major things you needed were in one little area. The streetcar might only need to have one two stops and then off to the next town. Anybody who lived too far out fom a town probably had a horse.

Once the automobile came along the city planning changed and things got more sprawling. Old rail systems got scrapped because ridership was declining and the private companies that owned them couldn't make a profit and the public didn't usually want to pay taxes to take them over so they ended up switching to buses or just nothing.

And then post automobile when the population of these places grew the new developement was not built with anything but cars in mind. That's why you have a lot of smaller cities with an old, small, relatively densely populated downtown and everything else is widely spaced out. Also once cars came along they started building big shopping centers that were really only accessible by cars somewhere away from downtown which often killed all the businesses there. So now everybody is driving 30 minutes to the big Walmart instead of shopping at the mom and pop stores.

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wismke83@reddit

Where I grew up in SW lower Michigan there were interurban street car lines between what would be considered small cities. When I say small all were under 10,000 with the smallest probably at 1000. These were in the late 19th/early 20th century. My Dad was born in 1948, and growing up in one of those cities, which ended up being about 20,000 when he was a kid, still had a municipal bus line, which would be unheard of now.

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My mom grew up on a farm in rural Michigan and walked to a one room school until she was in 5th grade (approx 1963). The various communities decided that it was in their best interest to consolidate all the smaller K-8 one room schools into one unified district that was K-12. Trade off was better allocation of resources, economies of scale, more student opportunities, and better educational outcomes, but would remove the proximity of schools to homes, so kids had to be bussed.

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Ihateregistering6@reddit

We had trains that would take you to different nearby small towns when I lived in Germany, but you had better know the schedule, because if you missed the one you needed you may not see another one for several hours.

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SkiingAway@reddit

The big thing to understand is the "rural" in a lot of other places doesn't look like rural often does here.

Rural in much of somewhere like Europe = 95% of the population of this place lives in a small, pretty dense, walkable town. It's just that the population + size of the town is quite small and there's a bunch of nature/undeveloped land between it and the next one.

Almost no one in those parts of the world lives the "scattered around the surrounding area for miles with their nearest neighbor 1/4 mile away, owning a giant plot of land" life.

As a result, it's still relatively feasible to serve those "rural areas" with a fairly usable/useful level of public transit. You can run a bus (or a train line) along a main road, making exactly one stop in each small town, and serve pretty much every person and business/thing to do that's in all of those towns, with most of that being within a reasonable walking distance of the stop.

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Fantastic-Pear6241@reddit

Uh, we have buses in the UK.

Any village along a rail line will also usually have a railway station.

Yup. I grew up in a farming community. About 700 kids went to my high school. They had separate lots for the staff and students. The student parking lot was right in front of the building and way bigger than the faculty lot.

Unless you live in a city that has a lot of public transportation or a suburb/school district that provides school buses for all the children, driving is the only option for high school student. We live at the far end of our local school district and the high school is five miles away. School starts at 7:30, to get to school on time you would have to start walking at 5:30 am.

There are parts of this country that are rural and even further from the regional high schools.

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MungoJennie@reddit

I went to school in a rural area, and the student’s parking lot was about the same size as the faculty’s. There is no public transport where I grew up.

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Lornesto@reddit

I went to both a rural and a city high school (due to a move) and both had large parking lots for student cars.

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pacifistpotatoes@reddit

Yep Im in a rural area & while we dont have a giant parking lot (I dont think its full up on a school day, but football games etc it does when you include visitors) the older students do drive. My kid is 15, and she is getting my old car when she turns 16. My husband & I spend the majority of our evenings driving the carpool, or sometimes just her. Plus add in wanting to hang out with friends when she has time, and she has a job for this summer. So I can't wait til next year when she will be able to drive herself. We will pay her insurance & gas because her job is to be a good student. Summer time fun things will be on her.

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smalls_tardis04@reddit

Growing up, the nearest high school to my house was a county school 23 miles away (all highway). I'm the oldest of my siblings and cousins, and it took me 30 minutes to get there when I stopped to pick up everyone on the way. I would also drop the young ones off at their elementary school and middle schools.

If we had all rode the school bus, we would've had to be ready almost 3 hours before school and dropped off almost 3 hours after. We also all did sports/clubs/extracurriculars, so the buses couldn't have taken us home on time or gotten us to early morning practices.

In WA state, teens are not allowed to have passengers under 21 unless they are immediate family members. Not like in my day, when we could legally have shenanigans.

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ThePurityPixel@reddit

In WA state

I've seen people say "In WA" or "In Washington state."

But this is a first.

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Either you’ve misinterpreted something or that must be a new rule? when I got my drivers license in 2019 in WA I was only allowed to drive family members places (mostly my younger brother) until six months after I got my license. After that I was free to drive anyone I wanted at any time. It was the same for my younger brother when he got his license in 2021.

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pacifistpotatoes@reddit

In IL, you can have passengers at 16 but I think its limited to like 2 or something. Until you turn 18. I can't remember the exact timing. And yes, no driving between x time & x time, for prom for my oldest in 2019 they had to get notes to drive home from after prom in case they got pulled over. I think its like 11pm-5am or something.

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CharlesAvlnchGreen@reddit

Ours get full privileges at 18. Here's WA state's rules:

Intermediate Driver's License (Age 16-17)

Eligibility: Must be at least 16, have held a permit for 6 months, passed a driver’s ed course, and passed the road skills test.
Experience: Requires 50 hours of supervised driving, including 10 hours at night.
Restrictions (First 6 months): No passengers under 20 years old, unless they are immediate family.
Restrictions (Next 6 months): No more than 3 passengers under 20, unless they are immediate family.
Nighttime Restriction: No driving between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. unless a licensed driver (25+) is with you.
Violations: A first violation of restrictions can result in an extension of the restrictions, while further violations can cause license suspension.

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Bbkingml13@reddit

Ok that’s way different and far more reasonable than the other comment.

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Fenc58531@reddit

These rules in practice are generally speaking never enforced unless you really fuck up and have the book thrown at you

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Unusual_Steak@reddit

Yup. My state has had very similar laws for decades and yet my town has 3 crosses where a 17 year old crashed into a tree while driving recklessly with 4 passengers.

CharlesAvlnchGreen@reddit

I remember when cops pulled kids over, and if they were drinking in the car, they'd just make you pour it out.

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gigisnappooh@reddit

My dad was the only cop in a very small town in a dry county, unless they were already drinking he made them poor it out. He could have confiscated it but he knew the mayor would take it home and drink it.

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ripplenipple69@reddit

Whaaaa? That is wildd I have never heard of that

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CharlesAvlnchGreen@reddit

So as of 2021, all states have some form of graduated driver licenses, where new drivers don't get full privileges for some length of time.

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CyanCitrine@reddit

So I guess dates are illegal?

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CharlesAvlnchGreen@reddit

??

No, as long as they're on dates, 16-year-olds can drink alcohol, buy legal weed, rent a car etc. /s

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MrBingly@reddit

In California you just can't have young passengers for the first year after getting your license, or until after you turn 18. So most high school seniors can drive their friends around.

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jmstrats@reddit

Just for the first year. During that year driving between 1am and 5am is prohibited as well.

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A few years ago, our school district rearranged the schedules so that high schoolers got out first. One of the arguments in favor of this was so they could go pick up siblings from the elementary schools or junior high. I don't know how many actually do this, but it was one of the bullet points.

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ilanallama85@reddit

I work in an aftercare program and we have a few siblings as pick ups, though not all the time. But I think there might be more with an older group of kids - most of mine have older siblings, but nearly all are under 16.

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Murda981@reddit

A few years ago our school district did the opposite, so now high school goes in later than elementary school (high school used to go in and get out first) and people lost their minds because it would mess with their high schoolers helping with the really little kids.

Yes, it's a suburban thing. Inner city high schools usually don't have massive parking lots.

Yes.

Teenagers often don’t afford their own cars; their parents are likely to subsidize their costs.

Certainly it’s less common in a city like NYC, but off the top of my head that’s probably one of the few cities in America that doesn’t have a parking lot at least the same size as the school itself.

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Osama_Bin_Drankin@reddit

I think it can vary by location alot. I grew up in a small city in Georgia with a population around 120,000. My high school was located near downtown and our parking lot was very small. The majority of students took the bus or walked.

Snirbs@reddit

Ok, but if I don’t have to, why would I want to? I don’t get the superiority complex on this issue of pumping your own gas.

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Maxpowr9@reddit

And as cars and insurance get more and more expensive, fewer teens under 18 are actually driving.

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Important_Chef_4717@reddit

Yes, but some kids are choosing to wait. We have 5 kids and only the youngest is refusing to drive.

smaller city 250,000 No public transit

How can America be this bad at being a country

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akm1111@reddit

Oh, it gets worse. I'm in Arlington TX. Largest city in the US with no public transportation. And we are going to be hosting FIFA for the next two months.

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AdEastern9303@reddit

There are school buses but, they are of little use when kids have after school sports and stuff.

Teenagers often don’t afford their own cars; their parents are likely to subsidize their costs.

FLSteve11@reddit

Particularly insurance. Most are under a family plan as it's more affordable. The rest depends on the family and it's situation.

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turquoise_amethyst@reddit

My parents made me pay for my car, insurance, and gas with a part time job. It took all my $.

Also mom used my gas frequently, haha

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ElleM848645@reddit

My parents had two cars, but my dad used a company vehicle during the day so I always got whatever car my mom didn’t want. When my younger sister got her license she could use it when I didn’t need it. Our mom always gave us whatever car had less gas. We had each filled it up a few times in a row and refused to do it for a while after that. One day my mom took it eventually and ran out of gas. We laughed but didn’t do it again.

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Dippity_Dont@reddit

Yeah, my parents bought me a car to drive myself to school. I would pick up some of my friends and drive them to school as well.

This is a suburban and rural thing. I grew up in a suburb and there is no public bus at all. There is a school bus, but most families have 2-3 cars and driving age is 16, so if you were cool you could drive yourself to school. But this also had a benefit for your parents: the school bus only operated once per day (take you to school, take you home immediately after), so if you had an activity after school now your parent must drive to pick you up. But if you drive to school you are now more independent. You probably have siblings that your parents have to drive everywhere, so of course as soon as you get your “freedom” it’s your parents’ freedom also.

And forget walking to ANYTHING. Where I grew up, the nearest anything was 1 mile away. The school was 8 miles away.

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Ms-Metal@reddit

Yes it is. It was even common when I went to high school 40 years ago. I don't get why it's mind-blowing. Talked about every day how everybody in the US pretty much drives everywhere, so we have to have some place to park those cars and that would be parking lots. The fact that their students makes no difference, they still have to park somewhere. A lot of places don't have buses anymore for school. I think more people drove when I was a teen and I'm in my sixties, just because there's that whole thing now of the helicopter children being too afraid to drive, that was not the case with my generation, you got your learner's permit at 15 and your driver's license the day you turn 16. In fact my sister bought her kids cars, older more beat up cars but cars just because it took so much time and effort and coordinating a four different schedules to drive them to school and back everyday. She's not sorry she did it. It took a huge effort off of her and her husband.

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lumaga@reddit

How do that many teenagers afford their own cars, insurance, and gas?

My eldest drives a 12 year old minivan that my wife drove since it was new. It's our car; we pay for the registration and insurance. He has a part time job and pays for half of his gas. Kids aren't out there making enough money for new cars.

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trae_curieux@reddit

Yes, I grew up in SoCal where public transit is spotty, so getting my license at 16 was a major milestone. I started driving myself to school and back at the end of my sophomore year. Per state law, there was an interim period for the first six months where I couldn't have anyone under 18 in the car with me unaccompanied, but after that, I regularly drove friends to the mall, etc to hang out.

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LavenderPearlTea@reddit

Yes. It’s very common where I live. I drove myself to school as a teenager.

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banditk77@reddit

My middle school had student parking.

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Wadsworth_McStumpy@reddit

Back when I was in high school, driving yourself was one of the key motivating factors for getting a driver's license. A lot of us bought parking passes at the beginning of the year, even though we couldn't drive yet.

And yeah, we have a lot of parking lots. Our country is huge, and most of it was built after driving became common.

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Consistent_Damage885@reddit

Yes, kids get to school by all of the above. Some take a school bus or city bus, some walk or ride a bike or scooter, some get dropped off by friends or family, and, if old enough, some drive themselves if their family has the extra vehicle for them to use. Public transport outside of big cities can be very limited and distances to school can be pretty far so car dependence is high.

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JointAccount24601@reddit

I'd say about 75% of juniors and seniors were driving themselves. The rest either weren't interested in driving yet (like me) or couldn't afford to, or didn't have their licenses for any number of reasons.

They afford it usually by having a job. A 16 year old typically gets a job, which they drive to. It's usually a smaller, more entry level job like a fast food restaurant.

there are also laws for parking lot sizes. the formula for parking lot sizes are not very considerate to the purpose of the building. like a school wouldnt need a 1:1 on people to parking lots cus the majority are kids that dont drive

my highschool parking lot at peak was only half filled

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andy-in-ny@reddit

In the exurbs where I live, if you put your kid on the bus they have to be out there, some places between 630-715, but if you drive your elementary kid to school you can leave the house at 745 and get them there before school starts at 8. Same thing at a Catholic High School. School Districts don't want to transport the private school kids so they make it even worse for them pickup can be 6 and then they catch one bus from the central collection point (HS or MS) and bring all these kids to the private schools. I have a nephew and niece, where if they take the bus, its 3 hrs on the bus for a 7 hr school day. For mom its a 3 mile drive, but the kids end up going 10 miles out of town to transfer to a bus to go back 3 miles past their house.

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RedPajama45@reddit

My mom works at a high school that has 2 kids who live about 40 miles away. Its a "free" public school, not even anything special

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StandOutLikeDogBalls@reddit

I had a car at 17 so I could drive myself to school, then my job, then home. I also had to do extra chores around the house and things such as going to the store for my parents.

I graduated from a class of 500 students and don't remember any classmates not having cars by the time we graduated. So if second through third year students had cars too, my high school may have had like 1500 cars belonging to the students. Back then kids were driving older, cheaper cars, so the parking lot didn't look like a car dealership the way some schools do now, but yes, we had a sprawling parking lot.

I remember if you were hanging out not long after classes, there were shenanigans in the parking lot (kids doing donuts, messing around in their cars, etc.). Probably has a bunch of cameras now but this was flip-phone era, and before absolutely everyone had a phone.

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AcanthisittaWhole216@reddit

It’s mind blowing for me too, I have never seen a big parking lot for students here in my state. Students get to school by either walking, school bus, public transportation, or parent pick up and drop off

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elf4everafter@reddit

I began driving myself to school at 16. I did not own my car. It was technically in my parent's name. They paid insurance and gas. They also bought said car. (Actually, I think my grandma did. But same end point.)

Prior to this, they had to set their schedules around getting me to and from school, sports, clubs, and work/volunteer events. My mom was able to work more if she didn't have to take me places. My grandma could rest and not worry about alarms or missing pick up time.

We were a very poor family in my district. Most kids got relatively new cars (5 years old) or their parents bought a true new car for themselves and kids got the old one. My car was as old as I was.

I live in an area with no public transit and minimal district transit. If I wanted to take a bus to school the nearest stop was 2 miles away. So either way, I had to be driven SOMEWHERE in the morning and it took longer to take the side streets to the bus stop than it did to take the highway to school.

I stayed in a parent owned car until my late 20s. It kept insurance reasonable. I appreciate that endlessly to this day.

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LetterheadClassic306@reddit

yeah it’s definitely a real thing especially in suburbs and rural areas. i grew up in a small town and the student lot was packed by 7am. a lot of teens drive beaters or share cars with siblings to keep costs down. when i got my first car my parents made me use a fuel rewards card to track gas spending and a basic dash cam for safety. it adds up fast but most families prioritize it because public transit just isn’t an option outside cities.

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AdamOnFirst@reddit

Yes, very common. We’re extremely rich.

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ilanallama85@reddit

When I was in high school, I lived 5 miles from my school and there was no public transit that ran in that direction. There were district provided buses, but if you were near the end of the route like I usually was, it could take up to an hour to do a less than 20 min drive. So of course many people drove.

Starting in 10th grade we could apply for a parking spot.

Teachers had the best parking spots. Then it went by grade going further and further away from the school.

10th grade got the furthest spots and quite frankly they just got whatever was left.

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Csherman92@reddit

We don't have a lot of public transportation here.

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Ozone220@reddit

yup. My school's got 3 parking lots as well as a street that Sophomores with cars or Juniors and Seniors without parking spots park on. Most teens insurance and such are paid by parents though, and most in my personal experience get their car from a parent (often after it's been very used for a first car). Some people absolutely save up money for their own nicer car though, or their parents make them pay for their own stuff

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Thausgt01@reddit

Yes. Car-culture gets its hooks into Americans at a very young age; you aren't considered "real" or "valuable" without at least access to a car, if not one in your own name. On the other side of the coin, public transportation in America is deliberately choked and neighborhoods are designed to discourage walking any further than to check the mailbox.

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Cootter77@reddit

When I was 16 and went to a wealthy high school - I thought I was poor because all my friends got brand new cars for their 16th birthday -- some of them luxury cars like Audi, BMW, and Mercedes. I had a 18-year-old car with 200,000 miles on it that I bought myself for $600 USD (in 1994). I was an idiot and I had NO idea what "poor" means.

So yes, in many places it is a real thing. America is big and diverse, so obviously not everywhere.

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Apocalyptic0n3@reddit

Yes. Very common. Those massive parking lots are generally too small and there's often a waiting list to get a permit for parking. My high school had 2500 students and 2 of the 4 grades could park in the lot, so about 1200 students. We had I think 800 total and a waiting list of about 100.

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skittlebog@reddit

The concept of space and how much things are spread out in the U.S. is difficult for people to grasp. When you live 5 or 10 miles from your high school and public transportation means spending 30 to 60 minutes on a school bus each morning and evening, getting a cheap used car to drive to and from school feels like a very practical idea.

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cdev12399@reddit

America is richly poor.

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MrWhite_Sucks@reddit

When the bus comes for free?

PantherkittySoftware@reddit

Yes. Florida high schools don't just have abundant student parking, some schools have parking garages.

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GSilky@reddit

Depends on the location. In suburban America and rural areas, yes, the students use it, but so do families when attending a sporting event or Spring production by the drama club. In densely populated areas, not usually room for any kind of parking lot.

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AustynCunningham@reddit

Also in Highschool as a TA I had to be there earlier than most students, mid day I was off to college classes, and after school I was in sports (tennis).

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Hang10arts@reddit

My highschool was 50% parking lot. There was a bus system, but the buses did not reach my house, they only went to the local library.

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ghostlikecharm@reddit

Most of the us doesn’t have public transportation.

As for cars and parking lots…yes.

Plus a lot of hs kids will have jobs or sports/clubs and they don’t have access to public transportation and/or school buses.

Our local HS is 4 miles away, but for reasons, it takes an hour if you take the school bus. It’s a 10 minute car drive if you hit all the lights in the way. Doors open at 7…which means my kids would have to meet the bus at 6 am.

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panulirus-argus@reddit

Yeah. Totally. As a parent it is insanely liberating once you no longer have to drive your kids to and from school

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Historical-Remove401@reddit

Schools do have buses, but when a student can drive themselves they don’t have to spend a hours riding the bus. Some students have jobs to go to or other responsibilities.

I grew up in rural connecticut. Everyone either had a car or got a ride from a friend after 10th grade.

That's great! I hope America can learn from Kenya...I mean, we won't, at least not for the 2.5 years, but maybe after that...

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daniegirl21@reddit

Yes, we do have large parking lots for all drivers, which usually one section dedicated to seniors for parking. Personally, I worked to buy my own car starting at age 14. I had to pay my portion of my parents insurance which went up due to me now driving and having a car and also paid for my own gas. I loved it because I had a ton of independence.

A lot of parents these days buy and pay for everything.

My kids had to buy half of their cars and have money to pay gas. I covered the insurance bc I would be paying anyway, since they were driving age in my home.

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capsrock02@reddit

You are in high school until 18 (mostly)

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dadsgoingtoprison@reddit

Outside of cities, yes.

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GPB07035@reddit

This has been very common for years. In fact the issue is that the parking lots are generally too small for the number of students who want to drive. And this is nothing new. I was driving to high school in the early 1980’a.

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MarionberryPlus8474@reddit

I grew up in a pretty well-to-do suburb, and yes lots of students had cars, often newer/more expensive than the teachers’.

It’s mostly the 17 and 18 yr olds.

Me and a friend alternated driving. I used my mom’s car. Her dad worked at a dealership as a mechanic and bought one that wasn’t running when she was 15 and spent a year fixing it up for her, bc he could get parts at cost or cheap from the junkyard. He worked on my first car a lot.

It wasn’t unusual where I grew up and also where I moved for high school, for kids to get jobs as soon as they were legally allowed to.

Families with more disposable income may buy their child a car. Wealthy families, kids usually get much nicer cars. But traditionally, your first car is one that is old, needs minor repairs, or bought from an ad of someone selling an old car.

It’s really not uncommon to not own a car right away and use a parent’s car instead. My high school did not have a parking lot for students. We just parked along the street. The campus was pretty large, so street parking wasn’t bad. Most of us parked along the fencing to the baseball and football fields.

Where I moved from, there were student lots. Before I moved to that town, there was a student lot, but they put a few new buildings up right before I moved. The lot in the middle of the buildings was bloated for parking. Only buses could use it for pickup and drop off.

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I’m currently sitting in one of the three parking lots for my daughter’s high school and 2 out of 3 are packed. There’s a high school choir concert tonight and everyone who has kids in the district shows up. Small town entertainment. 😬

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Legitimate-State8652@reddit

Some high schools in Chicago have SOME parking dedicated for students, but VERY limited. I would have to find parking near the school by a park and walk a bit

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ohheykiki@reddit

Yes and no.

At the high school I went to, yes. Granted this was 20 years ago but generally speaking you only saw seniors take the yellow bus if they were poor or if they had stricter parents (ie who wouldn't let them get licensed til 18).

Just south of the city line the general expectation is that once you're in middle school you will take public transport (which is free for under 18's).

Some of the private schools have contracted with the schools for special public bus runs that go to far corners of the city. School specials, they call them.

As far as the costs for a car-parents in my area were involved 90% of the time in some fashion. Some paid for everything. Some would let them use a car at times but the kids had to work to cover gas/insurance. I live in an upper middle class suburb, though. though.

I have noticed that car ownership is definitely being delayed as transit expands and also a lack of interest.

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PuzzledKumquat@reddit

At my high school, only seniors who had at least a minimum GPA of (I think) 2.0 were allowed to drive to school, because the student parking lot wasn't huge. Everyone else either took the bus or got dropped off. We lived too far from the school in an area with no sidewalks, so walking or riding your bike wasn't safe and would take too long.

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maybach320@reddit

Suburbs and rural areas it’s super common. I drove everyday in a suburb, my rural cousins even had a drive your tractor to school day.

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Less_Ability_5721@reddit

Yes. I grew up in rural Midwest. When I was younger, I had to catch the school bus at 6:05 to make it to school by 7:15. We only lived 5 miles outside of town, but we were near the beginning lof the route and the bus circled around to what seemed like hundreds of farms and houses (probably about 30), so it really did take close to an hour to visit every house on the route. School didn't even start until 7:45, but the same fleet of buses were used for Jr. High/High School, so they had to drop us off a bit early to have time to make a second trip for the older kids who started at around 8:15.

So, if you wanted an hour to wake up, shower, eat, and get ready, the entire family had to be up by 5, at the latest.

A lot of families refused and drove their kids to school, letting them get up at a more reasonable 6:30-7, and still letting them get to work by 8, 8:30.

By Jr. High/High School, many parents were sick of the routine and/or later drop offs interfered with work schedules, so some bought their kids cars and the rest of the kids got rides from those who did. In rural areas, there's no way to get jobs without transportation, so kids usually didn't contribute to the purchase, but some had agreements to use the car to get jobs and thus buy their own gas/insurance.

I've since moved to a large city, and some of the Urban high schools have parking lots a quarter of the size of my old high school, even though I think they hold 2-3 times more kids, so I assume a greater proportion either ride the bus or their parents drop them off.

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Joolset@reddit

I grew up in the country. My school bus would pick me up over an hour before school started because it had to zig zag all over the county picking students up. I was happy when my brother started driving to school because I could sleep in. My parents bought an old car and handled the gas and insurance.

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Easy_Yogurt_376@reddit

I’m from a major city, and yes lots of us drove to school. Those that had their own cars were cooler than the kids that drove their parents’ cars. We had to pay for a pass to park in the lot for students or park on the street. Those that parked on the street were allowed off campus to move our cars during breaks/passing periods because some of the streets were 2 hrs max.

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idiot-prodigy@reddit

Whenever I see American high schools on TV or Google Maps, there are gigantic parking lots filled with hundreds of cars that apparently belong to the students. Is this actually reality?

Most of the cars are in their parents names. Rich kids, upper middle class kids, all have cars provided by their parents. Middle class, lower middle class, and poor kids, might have kids who paid for the car themselves with their own money but the car itself might be in their parent's name.

Depending on the situation obviously. For instance, me and my siblings in the 1990's simply drove one of our parent's cars. At that time they had 3 vehicles, very quickly at 16 years old I saved up and bought my own car. That car was in my mother's name, so really my parents then had 4 cars, one of which my sister started driving when she just a few months later when I was 17 and she was 16.

You could tell who's parent simply bought them a vehicle, and who bought one with their own money. Typically the kid buying their own car, had a "beater", a very old junker car. The kids gifted cars by their parents usually had a car most kids couldn't afford on their own.

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kc_cyclone@reddit

I started driving to school myself regularly at 15 in 2007, at 14 a few times as a freshman when my brother couldn't. School permit in Iowa was available once you had a learners permit (14) for 6 months and has passed drivers ed. Didn't even have to take a driving to test to get the learners permiti just a written test that I could have passed when I was 7. I think back on it and laugh how hypocritical I am now seeing kids the same age driving thinking they need to get off the road when I was driving a manual 65 MPH on the way to and from high school barely after I started getting boners.

It wasn't rural Iowa but wasn't in a traffic dense area. My former boss drove to school at 12 regularly in ultra rural Kansas. Not legal but the way he put no one cared. This would have been in the 80s.

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ZieAerialist@reddit

Yeah. I lived in a very rural area. There was not public transportation, at all. There were school buses but depending on where you lived on the route it could be 2+ hours each way, so most kids were driven by their parents up til 16, when we would drive ourselves and sometimes siblings to school.

Some kids would drive tractors. In neighboring districts some kids would ride their horse to school still (1980s-90s.)

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travelinmatt76@reddit

I got my first job at 14 and I saved my money and bought a truck when I turned 16. That was 1993, I paid $3000 for a 1985 F-150

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Crowiswatching@reddit

The school my son went to in San Antonio (Reagan) had a large parking lot and assigned parking.

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myshellly@reddit

Normal where I am in suburb Texas. Have you seen the social media videos of students painting their parking spots every year? I feel like you’d be amused by that.

As to affording it, the teens aren’t usually paying for it. Their parents are. There’s no part time job that would completely pay for a car payment (plus a teen couldn’t qualify for the loan), insurance, and gas.

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spaetzlechick@reddit

Keep in mind that the US doesn’t have the public transportation systems in suburbs and rural areas that many other countries have. Kids take specific yellow school busses to school, and depending on density of students on the routes the same bus may have kindergarteners through high schoolers on it. Teenagers are very very motivated to get other vehicles because riding the yellow bus to school is super not cool.

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Working_Elephant5344@reddit

Yes, it’s extremely common for teenagers to drive to high school, but it’s usually their parents who buy the car and pay for their insurance. The car is often something like a Civic or Corolla, rather than the fancy cars you might see on TV.

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GormTheWyrm@reddit

TV probably exaggerates the number of cars because an empty parking lot does not look as nice. However, the parking lots are often really large because they are used for sporting events and often intentionally designed to hold extra cars in case of an emergency or disaster.

Schools are often designated as disaster safety zones meaning if there is a local or statewide disaster like a hurricane, tornado, flood, or massive power outage, the state or local government can declare an emergency and use those areas as a base of operations for disaster relief or even as refugee camps.

Schools often have generators or emergency power, and extra space for emergency supplies, tents, and other resources. Add a large parking lot and they can fit a lot of people, handle truck loads of supplies and still have room to set up emergency medical tents or field hospitals.

In many communities, the high school also acts as the center of the community, with sports events but also other non-school related events taking place on the property. The school I went to had public walking trails, extra fields and general public access to the grounds. Not to the buildings though. The front doors would be locked unless there was a public event like a play or indoor sports game.

So in my experience, many schools have huge parking lots which are not full of students cars. But a lot of students do have cars.

A high school may have 9, 10 ,11, and 12 grade students, or it may start as low as 6th grade in some areas with an attached middle school. Keep in mind that some schools are large and have “hundreds of cars” but thousands of students.

Generally though, only seniors and some juniors have cars (11 and 12th grade). Maybe a few 10th grade students but that is pretty rare. That means the amount of students with cars is generally under half but often less than a third of the students at that school.

Most states in the US have an age requirement for driving and most tenth graders are around 15 or 16 years old. So depending on the state, 10th grade students may only have a drivers permit which requires them to have a licensed adult in the vehicle while they drive. Or they get a license to drive newr the end of the school year. Meaning they often cannot drive to school on their own and leave a car there.

Therefore, It’s generally not worth having a car for a 10th grade student. However, 10th grade is right around the time they will start driving so a rich family may buy one for them. It’s pretty rare to buy a 16 year old a new car, outside of television, but it does happen.

Tenth grade is also around the time they might start working. (It’s often closer to 11th grade.) In many areas in the US, particularly in rural or suburban areas, you need a vehicle to function in society. Many people live too far from work or school to walk there within a reasonable time, and there is often no public transportation.

Schools may have a bus system that will get kids to and from school, but that bus system often does not go anywhere else. So if a kid gets a job, they probably need a vehicle to get to work.

Some schools may not have buses that reach everyone and the parents may need to drop their kids off, in which case having a car for that student frees the parent up so they can work more. (Or just drive less, especially if work is also really far from the school.)

On top of needing a car for work, a student may drive it to school because they can sleep in an extra 30 minutes or more, as driving is generally faster than taking the bus, which has to stop for other people. It also allows them the freedom to go wherever they want, and that may be the first time they have the freedom to decide where they will spend their time. Which means a lot of students exercise that freedom by going out after school once they get access to a vehicle.

Often, a student does not own their first car. A parent may have an old car that they do not get rid of when they get a newer vehicle, or the parents let the kid drive their car as needed.

But since you need a car to work in rural or suburban America, most students that do work are trying to save up for their own car. It’s common for parents to help students pay for the first car. It’s also common for a students first car to be a barely functional piece of junk. TV likes to portray rich people in new cars but more common is something 10 to 15 years old that is making weird engine noises.

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The lots are usually for staff and for guests during events, in addition to students, and typically the students need a parking permit due to limited space. It additionally helps keep the school busses from being overcrowded by letting the older students drive themselves. This is all far more common in suburbs, where public transportation is almost always a pile of hot garbage (metaphorically), and the same teens are often driving themselves to jobs after school, running errands, going to see friends, giving siblings rides etc.

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ToBePacific@reddit

Most of the United States has very bad public transit outside of major cities. Everything was built under the assumption that you will drive, and this has the effect of creating a world where driving becomes necessary. And it starts at 16.

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CyanCitrine@reddit

Yep, extremely common depending on where you live. Where I live, probably a good number of the students drive, Idk if it's half but maybe. A lot of them walk as well as there are sidewalks and houses all around. Some do ride the bus as well. But lots of drivers, yes. I drove myself and my siblings to school junior and senior year and had my own car, as did the majority of my classmates.

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Restoretheroof@reddit

Our High School had a huge parking lot, and my senior year it was expanded and each grade had their own lot.

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SabresBills69@reddit

Most 1y snd 17 yr old are under parents insurance snd driving a car parents oen. You can buy a functioning car for cheap st $100] or less. Its unsafe to drive long distances. Local driving of s few miles away its fine.

When I was a teen/early 20s I had a small car that was $500 and my dad coukd do minor work on it

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Hawk13424@reddit

Let look at the options you listed.

Public transportation. No such thing near me. Destiny is just too low.

School busses. Takes an 1:15 each way when your kid could drive it in 20 min. That’s almost two hours wasted. Doesn’t allow for after school activities (sports, band, tutors, work).

Parents take you. Requires the parent be available. With after school activities the times are different day to day and can change at the last minute.

So parents pass down the old car or buy their kid a used car. Gas is usually cheap (was) and insurance as an addition to the prints policy not to bad for an old car.

Also, by 16, many kids need a car so they can work in the summer. No school busses. Crazy hours so parents can’t take them to/from work.

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kppsmom@reddit

I had my first car at 15

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I live in a semi-rural area. Yep. They absolutely do drive themselves to school. They take the bus until they get their licenses, but then it’s driving themselves. It was also a thing in the area I went to high school in-which was just a normal suburban area. I could walk to school, but why walk when all my friends had cars? Or I could take Dads lifted boarded out pick up? My youngest just got rides from either her boyfriend (now husband) or her best friend if she didn’t have her Dads car for whatever reason.

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trustingfastbasket@reddit

Yes. My dad couldn't wait to get me a car so he didn't have to drive me around anymore. It was not a nice car. Lol In the suburbs nothing is within walking distance.

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Bubbly_Following7930@reddit

I grew up in the city. They barely had any parking for teachers, there was nothing for students.

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jannylou2@reddit

The school district I live in only has school buses for elementary kids, then middle school kids have to be over 1 mile away from school for a bus & high school kids have to be over 3 miles away from school. There are no public buses of any sort in our area. My grandson lives in a different district & they have buses for all. However if kids have a job or babysit younger siblings or have church activities you better be driving to school. My daughter is looking to get my grandson a car.

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BigPapaJava@reddit

If they’re driving, they may have a job after school to pay for the gas and insurance.

Parents and relatives often pay for the cars, perhaps by giving the kid their old car when they buy a new one for themselves or by buying their son or daughter a used car. Wealthy parents will buy their kids nice, new cars.

Oomlotte99@reddit

Probably depends on where they live. I am from a city so most people just walked but there was limited parking in a senior lot that people did use. A lot of times it was a parent’s car, though.

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Mushrooming247@reddit

Between the 1930s and 1950s, General Motors, Chevron/Standard Oil, Firestone Tires, and other companies that benefited from American drivers got together and bought up all of our public transportation infrastructure to dismantle it to force Americans to rely on cars.

This is why America has very little public transportation, and we are all but required to own cars.

This is why we have those big yellow school buses, there’s literally no other way for most children to get to school unless their parents drive them or they drive themselves, (and those big yellow buses are slow, my bus ride to school was over an hour each way growing up, so driving yourself really buys back a lot of your time.)

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needmoarbass@reddit

Yes parking for a few hundred students. And many staff. And those same parking lot(s) can be filled up used for events and sporting events outside of school hours. There may be several hundred people parking for the football game, even with additional parking sometimes. Our practice football field and the streets were full of an extra couple drivers. As well as nearby businesses and their own parking lots.

Cars are given by parents. Some students save up a few thousand dollars themselves by working after school.

More suburban.

In my state, we start driving cars on public roads at age 14 with our learner’s permit and a parent riding in the car. At 16 we can drive alone. We usually take drivers education classes at the end of 15. More common in rural states to legally drive this young.

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shoddy_bobody@reddit

Yes very common. My dad bought me my first car at 16.5 and my grandmother paid my insurance until I was 30. Now before you come at me, I tried to get her to stop and she just wouldn’t so I stopped arguing!

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Guy2700@reddit

How else is everyone going to get to school?

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ThatCrossDresser@reddit

For us that live in rural areas. Yeah, most of our schools have large parking lots so students can drive to school in the morning. It was also helpful for large school events like football games, graduations, and concerts.

Students usually have a specific parking area and sometimes it requires a small permit fee. For parents it is a huge advantage as a bus ride in rural areas can be over an hour long where driving in is 10 minutes. In that case there is less rush in the morning and the oldest usually is also responsible for dropping of their younger siblings and sometimes other kids on their street if allowed (laws for under 18 year old an passengers very by state).

Basically you become the bus but only have 1 or 2 stops. This releases the parents from a lot of time and stress too as the oldest child also drives their siblings home and may pick up stuff around town if needed or drop off or pick up siblings for stuff like sports or other extracurricular activities. The student gets access to a vehicle and the freedom that comes with it. Back when I was in school in the early 2000s, you couldn't be cool if you didn't have a car.

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rjbonita79@reddit

Have to drive if you want to stay after school for any reason or get to school early like for sports or tutoring. In suburban/rural America students have no access to public transportation besides the school busses that only have one time for picking up and dropping off. I lived a mile from the school while my friend lived 10 miles and we were in the same school district.

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ImLittleNana@reddit

I went to a suburban high school. At that time, you could get a full license not just a permit at 15. They had to restrict student parking to juniors and seniors only, then just the time I was a junior it was seniors only.

Moose1013@reddit

it used to be, but now there's no more cheap used cars and nobody can afford it anymore

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idling-in-gray@reddit

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neoslith@reddit

16 year olds? No.

17 and 18? Yes.

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SabrinaFaire@reddit

At my high school, which granted was 30 years ago, but I doubt it's changed much, only seniors could park at the school, and even then, you had to sign up pretty early to get a spot and pay a fee. I lived in the ex-urbs (not quite rural but further out than the suburbs) and there still isn't much public transportation there, so you basically have to drive or walk everywhere. My parents bought me a used car that had over 100K miles on it to get to a summer job.

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Jcamp9000@reddit

Common and normal in the suburbs.

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MessoGesso@reddit

For some families the child's first car is part of their steps for financial responsibility. The parents know the entire expense for car, insurance, gas and maintenance is big.

The kid might have to get a part time job and pay for gas. The car might be an old family car that has no payments left. The parents add the kid their own insurance. That's the frugal way.

The fancy way is, here are the keys to your new car. Some parents want to give their kid the enjoyment of a carefree teen life. No part tjme job, just driving with fiends.

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NewAnything8221@reddit

Yes

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Glass_Witness1715@reddit

We don’t have public transportation that goes to our neighborhood or near my teen’s school. My teen goes to a private school so there are no school buses either. We got him a car as soon as he saved up $1000 towards a down payment. He works part time to pay for half his car payment/insurance. It’s been a huge relief having him able to drive, honestly. I grew up financially unstable and didn’t get my first vehicle until I was 21 and graduating college. I paid every cent myself. I did a lot walking and a lot of waiting hours for someone to be able to pick me up. I’m well aware that we are quite privileged now and that we could survive without my teen having a vehicle - but it sure is nice!

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Less-Load-8856@reddit

Definitely.

My Highschool in the late 80s had over 2600 students and four big parking lots.

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Intestinal-Bookworms@reddit

Yep. A thing to remember is most rural and suburban towns do not have public transportation, let alone adequate public transportation for all school aged minors. There are of course school buses but I doubt they could get all the kids for all the grades to school on time everyday

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sophijor@reddit

Yes.

But the kids that aren’t fortunate enough to have their own cars at 16 take the bus.

It saves the parents a lot of stress and coordination and gives them a break from driving/carpooling you to school like in middle school.

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tempest1523@reddit

Very common here. We live 30 minute drive from the school. There is no public transport. The school has a bus system but if you do any sport’s or club activities you have to drive. Yes there are very large parking lots for the students.

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TheReallyAngryOne@reddit

My old high school has big student and staff/event parking. The school used to be the only regluar high school in town and is out in the rural area of town so those who could drive did. Even today, with 2 other regular high schools and 4 alt high schools, the school still has 2000+ students plus events so the school district lit tore down trailers to add in more parking.

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must-stash-mustard@reddit

The US American mindset is everyone for themselves, me first. Parking lots represent the individualism of survival of the fittest. In this regard, shared public amenities like public transit are seen as weakness, to be avoided, and a sign of individual weakness and failure.

Suburban parents are very status conscious and would not want to be seen by their neighbors as 'failing' at providing for their offspring. So, massive parking lots and teens driving cars it is!

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toodleroo@reddit

My parents bought my first car and paid for insurance, but I worked summer jobs and paid for my own gas.

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spaltavian@reddit

Yeah, very common.

How do that many teenagers afford their own cars, insurance, and gas? Is this strictly a suburban thing, or is it normal everywhere across the US?

I had a job. My parents bought my car and I paid them back. Insurance they probably covered most of. Gas was totally on me.

But lots of parents just paid for everything.

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Kaurifish@reddit

I used to be a small town reporter and there were two kinds of stories that came up a lot:

Parents proudly buying their 16 yo a car.
Parents mourning because their 16 yo wrapped that car around a tree, killing themselves and the carload of friends they absolutely were not supposed to be driving around.

alphaturducken@reddit

While most schools have a bus that takes kids to and from school, that's all it does. It doesn't pick them up and take them to after school jobs or even pick them up from after school activities. Most cities have either no public transportation or the public transportation might as well not exist.

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coolkirk1701@reddit

Your mileage may vary but when I was in high school, getting your license and driving yourself to school was almost a rite of passage, a sign that you were a significant step closer to being an adult. It was also a status symbol, it meant that you had a lot greater control over your life than people who were still being driven to and from school by your parents.

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JiffTheJester@reddit

Yeah I drove myself to school for 2.5 years after getting my license

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Yeah it’s the norm. Used cars and gas aren’t that expensive and kids have jobs to pay for this stuff.

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cardifan@reddit

I live in a city with good public transportation, so the high schools only have very small parking lots, mostly for faculty, and the kids take public transportation for the most part. This gives me so much less to worry about as a parent, because I know when I was doing shit I absolutely should not have been at 16 and had no business getting in a car and driving home.

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AtheneSchmidt@reddit

Our nation is most friendly to people with cars. Outside of a very small handful of cities, it's actually very difficult to get around without a vehicle. A lot of teens are given access to a car that is their parents'. Some buy their own, some are given cars, and some sit in the middle (maybe they get to use the car, but have to pay for gas and insurance.) These are all pretty common depending on your family.

When I was 16 I would happily drive to school every day. It also took some things off my parents shoulders, as I was driving myself and my sister to school. Also to friend's houses, heck even to the grocery store if they needed just a few things.

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NYIsles55@reddit

Pretty common outside of cities. Just to note though, not everywhere is 16 years old for drivers (though I think that's the most common age)

I'm from NY, where you get learners permit at 16 (which only let's you drive with your parents in the car or with another trusted adult with your parents permission), and your license full license at 17 I'd you took drivers education (which most kids my age did). Without drivers ed, you can't get your full license until 18.

In my state, if you passed your drivers test (which you can take as early as 16 like I did), you get a junior license until you turn 17/18, depending on if you did drivers ed. Upstate NY I think you could drive to school with a junior license, but couldn't do that on Long Island.

Some teens work to pay for cars but more often their parents buy them and pay for gas. I drove my grandfather's truck to high school and my parents paid for gas and insurance.

I lived 40 minutes by car to my high school so there wasn't any other way to get there. It was a huge relief on my family once I could drive myself.

Families with multiple kids get the oldest a car as soon as possible so they can help with transportation. In America it's very rare to be able to walk anywhere substantial from your house, bus service is non existent or runs once an hour unreliably, and school buses struggle to serve the whole population.

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rademradem@reddit

The way it works for high schools here is:

Seniors (12th grade) get to sign up for parking passes first.

Then Juniors (11th grade) get next choice. If too many juniors want to sign up and there are not enough parking spots, they have a lottery.

If any passes are left, Sophomore’s (10th grade) who are over the age of 16 get last choice and are put in a lottery.

Parking spots cost $100 per year or $50 per semester and are assigned numbered parking spots for each student with a parking pass. The parking lot is almost entirely full every day as students will lose their parking pass for missing school too many days, being late too many times, discipline issues, or having bad grades.

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Extension_Order_9693@reddit

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KonaKumo@reddit

Shifting away for the last decade. Fewer students are getting their drivers license instead relying in public transport or uber.

A car doesn't represent the freedom it once did back when most high schools were built.

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CompanyOther2608@reddit

Yes

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carry_the_way@reddit

Yes. Most US infrastructure is built around driving personal automobiles, especially the farther west you go, because auto manufacturers and oil companies have lots of money.

Most suburban areas have nominal-at-best mass transit, because they don't want poor people there in order to limit the number of Black people (because, while not every Black person is poor, if you're Black, you're far more likely to be poor).

Older schools in more urban areas won't have as much parking, but will also be much easier to get to via mass transit.

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Sweaty-Move-5396@reddit

How do that many teenagers afford their own cars, insurance, and gas?

HeatherCPST@reddit

Yes, totally normal in rural Kansas. In fact, if you live on a farm, you can get a farm permit and drive yourself to school and farm-related work at 14.

While there are school buses for students who live outside of town, that’s only if you need to get to school right before it starts and leave right when it ends. If you have morning/after-school meetings, early classes, or sports activities after school, the buses do not transport at those times.

We do not have any sort of public transportation outside of school buses.

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doublenostril@reddit

We lack public transportation and we don’t live near enough each other. Even where it would be bike-able, it often isn’t safe due to lack of paths.
Parents either transport their kids themselves or pay for the gas/car insurance for the older teens to transport themselves.

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Bluemonogi@reddit

Yes it is common for high school students to drive to school in many areas of the US once they can get a driver license.

They may drive a car still owned by their parents- or their parents or other relative bought them a car. It might be an older used car.

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crazycatlady331@reddit

Circa 1990 (graduated 1998), when the town/county passed a helmet law for kids (under 16, the age to drive), biking to school plummeted overnight.

Public transportation is awful and not a viable option for the vast majority of Americans. There are only a few cities, mostly on the east coast, that have usable public transportation.

RickyRagnarok@reddit

You’ve got to realize that outside of large cities public transportation sucks, if it even exists.

School buses don’t go everywhere.

Both parents have jobs in many cases making it difficult for them to drop off and pick up children.

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Dippity_Dont@reddit

My old school system didn't even have buses. To this day they STILL don't have buses. And they are in a good sized city too.

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Ol_Man_J@reddit

On top of that, if the kid has after school activities, the school bus is gone and they now have to find a way home.

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sonofthesoupnazi@reddit

At one point in college I lived more than 10 miles of highway and then 30 miles of gravel roads from the school. By age 15, almost every student was driving to school.

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Next_Ad_4165@reddit

It’s common. In the 90’s, when I was 16+, I drove my mom to work, then took the family car to school. I saved up $500, and bought an old car my senior year. My parents paid the insurance, I paid for gas. (I’d had jobs since I was 11.)

bagelbones28@reddit

super common in less urban areas! I was ‘weird’ in high school for not having a license and taking the school bus every day lol

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Queasy-Flan2229@reddit

Yeah, public transportation isn't really a thing except in a.few cities.

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Virtual_Job9303@reddit

So common that many schools slap a “Seniors only” rule on it, because they don’t have enough space to accommodate everyone over 16.

Kids can’t afford it, and even if they could, they couldn’t sign most contracts necessary to buy/insure a vehicle. The short answer is, their parents are paying for it.

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Murderhornet212@reddit

A lot of us live in the boonies and the school bus can take hours to go around to all the houses.

It’s age 17 where I live.

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ElleM848645@reddit

In the suburbs absolutely. A lot of states have curbed 16 and 17 year olds driving other kids though so most kids have to drive themselves. Also many kids can’t get their license exactly on their 16th birthday, usually have to wait 6 months and take drivers ed. I was 16.5 when I got my license (almost 30 years ago) and drove to school my entire senior year at 17. However, I’ve heard that kids aren’t itching to get their license at 16 anymore like it was in the 80s and 90s. Many teenagers just don’t drive.

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Capable_Suit_7335@reddit

I live in rural America and it’s very common to have kids drive a beater with a heater to school. For my non Americans that means a cheap car that’s just safe enough to get to point A and point B while also having a heater for the winter time.

In my area kids will take tractors, four wheelers, side by sides, golf carts, the bus, junky car, or get dropped off by their parents.

lcoursey@reddit

There is no public transit in most of the USA.

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NoHorseNoMustache@reddit

My school only had a lot big enough for the seniors to drive. Not all the kids had cars so I think there were maybe 50-60 spots. Not huge at all.

But I went to a small rural school.

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Unlucky-Guitar221@reddit

I grew up very rural (45 minute drive to school) and got my driver’s license at 14! It was called a “hardship” license, and I was only permitted to go to school, work, home, and church. Very restrictive, but realistically not an issue unless I was pulled over.

Most people drove or caught rides with friends in high school unless you lived close enough in town. We DID have bus routes, but being so fanned out it could genuinely mean \~2hr rides to get to school. Obviously most people opted out of that as soon as they could lol

It is very common for upper classmen to drive themselves to school. Less so for 16 year olds, as this generation isnt champing at the bit to get their license, and theres just less disposable income from parents buying their kids a car and a 16 year old likely hasnt saved up for a car on their own.

Having lived in suburbs/urban sprawl, two cities, and a rural town, it really depends where you are.

In suburbs/urban sprawl poor kids take the school bus or walk, middle class kids get a ride with parents or drive themselves. In cities, they don’t have school busses over a certain age, kids just get a free bus pass for the public transport. In rural areas, it depends if the kid lives in town or not. If they’re in town, they walk, get a ride, or take the school bus. If they’re outside of town, they usually drive, and kids as young as 14 can get a license in some states (specifically to go to school, work, and back home, nothing fun). You also sometimes see kids riding golf carts to school when the weather is warmer

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Flimsy-Sector7736@reddit

Where I went to school, there was basically no public transit. There were school buses that drive fixed routes near the house of every person in the school.. However, in high school it’s common for kids to go from school directly to a job, or to have after school activities at odd hours, etc., so we could drive in our last year or in our third year if our grades were good enough lol. Now I live in DC and the schools don’t even have sufficient parking for the staff.

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Friendly_Care5245@reddit

Very common. Our school starts at 9. I have to be at work at 8. Buses are unreliable. There you have it. Also, many schools have community college class work where the kids have to go to the community college for class. No bus available, they have to drive.

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Fun_Apricot_3374@reddit

It’s very common, and it’s because the U.S. is still very wealthy despite’s its issues and public transit is not very good or nonexistent in some places. Usually a school bus would be able to service 99% of the students, but students are encouraged to do after and before school programs, like sports or clubs, and the school bus doesn’t service those times.

A suburban household in the U.S. middle class likely make over 6,000 a month, (72k/year) and a used car can be 2,000-5,000, so it’s expensive, but a relatively cheap one time purchase that gives your kids much more freedom and also the parents no longer have to drive or plan the kid’s time, because they can drive themselves places.

Also kids can get part time jobs if they have a car, so lots of people I knew had their parents buy them a cheap used car, and then paid it back in 6-10 months of working after school, weekends, and breaks.

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_lilcoffeebean_@reddit

I lived in a rural area for high school and my school had 3 parking lots—one for the staff and two for the students. Out where we lived there was no public transportation, most everyone lived too far from town to walk, and if you wanted to ride the school bus you not only had to be within the town limits, you also had to pay. Most of us just had hand me down or beater cars and gas didn’t use to be so expensive.

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Bright_Ices@reddit

It’s common to have very little access to reliable public transportation or safe walkable routes to school. Older siblings often drive themselves and their younger sibs.

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up2knitgood@reddit

I drove to high school in the 90s once I had a license. Because it made my parents lives easier. Alterative was them getting me and my (8 years younger sister) 4 miles down the dirt road to meet the school bus at about 45 minutes earlier than I would have to leave if I just drove.

And in the afternoon my sister would often take the bus, but I had after school commitments almost everyday, so the school bus wasn't possible. If I didn't drive one of my parents would have to pick me up after sports practice or the like, sometimes I could carpool to get closer to my home, but no one really wanted to drive me all the way home (recall the 4 miles of dirt road), and this was pre-cell phone so coordinating for my parents to meet the other car was more complex. And if there was an away game, sometimes we'd be back to the school after midnight. So parents would have to come pick me up, and again, potential wait quite a while because the timing was unpredictable and there were no cell phones to let them know more details about arrival.

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RogerRabbot@reddit

Yeah its true. But also, many of the cars arent exactly "theirs" but borrowed from their parents. Kids can start driving at 16, and we still have a few years left. And it makes it simpler for the parents, not having to drop off their kids.

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meldiane81@reddit

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1911Earthling@reddit

Yes it is common. Lots of hand me down cars 🚗. I had my own car at 16.

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Avalanche325@reddit

I started driving to school at 15. Before that it was dedicated school buses.

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khauser24@reddit

I grew up in the Bronx. My high school is 8 floors tall. 3 elevators, 2 for students, one for teachers. Up and Down escalators that went every other floor. My graduating class was 4 digits.

VERY little parking space.

My daughters both went to school in New Hampshire. They got a large (for here) high school, but basically 1 floor. Each of their graduating classes was smaller 100s. LOTS of parking for students.

Here's the think, in NYC, EVERYONE uses public transportation, don't need parking places at all.

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Disastrous-Nail-640@reddit

Yes it’s true that many students drive themselves.

Is this strictly a suburban thing, or is it normal everywhere across the US?

You need to remember how much of the US population is suburban and rural. The US is gigantic and we have a ton of land, parking lots are very cheap. I grew up in the burbs in New England (so most dense part of the country) and we still had so much room for parking lots.

Urban areas not nearly as common.

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CharlestonChewbacca@reddit

I lived 10 miles from my High School. Many others lived further away.

My mom was so excited for me to get my driver's license so she didn't have to drive me to and from school every day.

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blipsman@reddit

Yes, it's pretty common... pretty much anywhere other than dense urban cities like NYC or Chicago. American teens can get license to drive at 16, many get cars (some new, some used). Parents are often relieved to not have to drive their kids around to school, sports, activities, to friends' houses, etc.

Often parents buy their teens the car. Sometimes they get a hand-me-down from the parents or grandparents, sometimes the kid will have saved summer job/part time job money. Sometimes parents pay everything because "doing well in school is the kid's job" but other times it may be something like parents buy car but kids pay insurance and gas.

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JonMatrix@reddit

It depends. Where I went to high school in Florida, I technically lived too close to the school to use the bus. Before I had a car I would either walk or ride my bike (10 minute bike ride, 20ish minute walk). The thing about Florida is, other than a few weeks in the winter, it’s usually hot or raining. Taking a car for me was more about avoiding the Florida weather than it was the distance or speed.

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Lucasaiplus@reddit

Yes, it's very real — and it comes down to one thing: American suburbs were designed around cars, not people.

There's often no sidewalk, no bus route, and the nearest grocery store is 15 minutes by car. So driving isn't a luxury here, it's basically infrastructure. Getting your license at 16 isn't exciting — it's survival.

As for affording it: most teens work part-time jobs specifically to cover gas and insurance. The cars are usually old, cheap, and held together by optimism. But yes, the parking lots are real and they are enormous.

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misagale@reddit

Very common. Parents have to work. Kids have to get to school and then to work or sports, etc. Things are not close or walkable in most places here.

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Ravenclaw79@reddit

Those lots are also for the school staff

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Staff_Genie@reddit

Here in Texas those big parking lots are important on Friday night

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Living_Fig_6386@reddit

The age that kids can drive varies from state to state.

Kids can drive themselves to school if they have a driver's license, but few schools have enough parking for the majority of students to drive, so they often only permit seniors to drive, and some schools limit the number of cars by requiring a parking sticker and limiting the number they give out.

Driving to school is more common in rural areas where the distances may be larger and there may even be regional schools. It varies a lot in other parts of the country. I notice that the desire to drive is much lower in my kids generation than it was in my own generation.

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TheGabyDali@reddit

I think something to remember is that public transport isn't a sing in a lot of suburban areas, even outside of bigger cities. One student was constantly skipping school and we found out that it was a two hour trip via the bus (so four hours total for the day) and she just stopped feeling like it was worth it. Her parents both worked and couldn't drive her and they weren't in a financial position to buy her a car.

I want to add, and this might be more of an individual thing, but students nowadays have a lot on their schedule. It's no longer good enough to just get good grades you also have to be in clubs, sports, volunteering, internships, miscellaneous activities and yes.... jobs. And unless you are particularly well off financially most households have both parents working during the day. I wish we had reliable public transportation but until that's the case I can understand why it's simpler to just get your kid a car.

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Umbreom4926@reddit

Depends on where you live, but yes, especially in towns where there's little other transport. Most adults have either the same or opposite work schedule than the school day, so unless you have a stay-at-home parent, your parents will either be asleep, getting ready, or already gone.

Most cars are gifts from parents or technically belong to the family, though- the average American teenager is not owning their own car from their own hard work lol.

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Sea-Inspector-9663@reddit

When I was in high school there weren’t a lot of cars but football and basketball games, track and graduations brought a lot of traffic.

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Determined-over50@reddit

Extremely common in the burbs and in my area parents pay usually for car. Kids usually pay for gas. And insurance usually a kid contributes to, but it’s all family dependent.

Parents want their kids independent and there are no decent public transit options. So parents pay for the convenience of not having to shuffle their kid around.

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HayTX@reddit

Normal in rural areas. Back in the day we could get hardship licenses at 14 to drive to school.

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CurrencyCapital8882@reddit

Very common. The parents usually pay the insurance and often help with the purchase. Gas is on the kid.

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Yes. Big parking lots for the kids to park their own cars and a huge traffic snarl around the school every morning and every afternoon. It’s a stupid, self-imposed problem.

We don’t have public transportation in my area so yes, very common. I also did drop off and pick up of all the friends I could fit in the car.

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Very common. You are even allowed to paint your parking spot.

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kingoflint282@reddit

I got a car when I was 15 and started driving it to school at 16. I paid for part of it with money I had saved, but mostly my parents paid for it. I also had my parents’ credit card which I could use to pay for gas, etc.

Very common for kids to drive themselves up school, but rare for them to be paying for it entirely themselves

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captainstormy@reddit

Yes, in most states you can get your learning permit at 15 and your license at 16.

Keep in mind that most of the US doesn't have good public transportation. We don't prioritize that here, we built our country around cars. I grew up in a rural area. There was no public transit at all, there weren't even cabs to hire. It was literally a situation where you had to be reliant on yourself and friends and family to get around. This is very normal.

Even now that I live in a city, public transit is a last resort for people because it's so bad. I live in Columbus which is the capitol of Ohio (7th most populated state). I actually live less than 5 miles from the state capitol building and just around the corner from the governors mansion.

My wife and I both live 7 miles from work in opposite directions. It's a 15-20 drive in traffic in the morning. It's more like 10-15 without traffic. If she were to take the bus to work it would take her over an hour and she would end up walking about 2.5 miles of the distance. Much of that walk would be through areas without a sidewalk even.

If that isn't bad enough for you, public transit straight out isn't an option for me. The bus lines don't go out by my office. Can't be done. I'd end up walking most of the way anyway.

As for how it works. The kids don't really own the cars or pay the insurance. That is the parents. I don't even think you can legally do those things until you are 18 but I'm not a lawyer so I could be wrong.

I had a part time job starting at 14 (minimum age to work were I was from). When I say that I mean something that had a W2 (tax form) that the government knew about. I grew up on a farm so I always had work to do, I just didn't get paid.

My mother got me a car, a 15 year old beat up chevy for my 15th birthday. My grandfather and I spent a year getting it fixed up while I was learning to drive and I got my license at 16. I had to pay for gas money out of my own paycheck but my mother bought the car and paid for insurance.

Keep in mind most schools do have busses too to pick the kids up and take them to school and back. (Yes, those yellow busses on TV are real). But depending on where you live and the bus route it can be a long ride to get to school. Some of those bus routes could be pushing 2 hours.

You also get rides from older friends and such. I actually never rode the bus to high school. I was on the football team and one of the older guys lived down the street from me so he gave me a ride before I got my license. I did the same for some guys when I got my license.

Cars are as deeply ingrained in American culture today as horses were in the old west. It's just part of it.

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Phoenix_Court@reddit

Depends on the area you live in. I am from a small town. We didn't have many students to begin with. So add to that that not all of them drive, and our student parking lot was very small.

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AwkwarsLunchladyHugs@reddit

Yes, when I was on high school (decades ago lol), probably 85% of the students had a car and drove to school. I lived in a very small town (population was around 12,000) and it was also quite rural. The next town bigger was 100 miles away, so absolutely no public transport, and school busses were only for the kids that lived outside the city limits. Also, it was "uncool" to ride the bus.

When my kids where in school - in a different city, with a population over 50k, it was probably 60% of students who drove and busses actually ran both in and outside the city limits, so a little different.

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pinecone-party@reddit

Yes, and some schools let seniors decorate their parking spots. Ot gets repainted each year.

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missmeatloafthief@reddit

My high school was in upper class suburban America and yes, students drove themselves every day and students had cars, sometimes even newly purchased cars. We had many vast parking lots surrounding the school.

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Time-Subject-3195@reddit

When I was 5 or 6 my dad bought a van, and by the time I turned 16 he had moved on to a truck, so I got the van. By the time my brother turned 16 my mom’s SUV was also about 10 years ago so it got to be his. It’s fairly common for middle class families to either do this hand me down thing, or to buy a similar aged car. Sometimes the teen will need to get a job to earn the few grand cost, and parents will help with upfront costs.

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ComesInAnOldBox@reddit

Depends on where you are in the US. Suburban and rural districts, sure. It isn't uncommon at all for high school kids to have their own cars. 30 years ago when I was in high school, those cars were usually very used, pieces of crap that barely run, but were paid for by the students themselves working part-time on nights and weekends. We mostly covered our own insurance, too, or at least covered the premium increase when our parents put us on theirs. Same with gas and what little maintenance we could do on our own. It was especially common with high schools that had an auto shop program.

Nowadays it's still fairly common for rural and suburban kids, although these days their parents pay for most of it themselves instead of the kids.

It also depends on the state, as some states have really strict safety inspections that won't allow a junker to remain on the road, thereby eliminating the project cars.

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Extreme-Leading-3079@reddit

In the state I live (and I assume most other states as well) attendance is mandatory if you're enrolled in public school.

Why is that important to this question? Getting to school on time and staying for class all day is a priority that parents must ensure their schedules can accommodate for their kids entire school year. Parents can face criminal penalties for kids having too many absences. Being late eventually equals a full days absence if you're late so many times.

As many have stated public transport is very poor and unavailable throughout the US.

Schools do provide busses, but not everyone lives in an area serviced by a bus route. If you live too far, or live within a certain mile radius of the school, you aren't eligible. Living too close doesn't always mean you can walk either. In high school I lived less than a mile from my school, but wasn't allowed to walk. There were zero side walks and the roads I had to walk on were high traffic and dangerous. Also, taking the bus means you're late a lot (and it still counts as being late to school even if on their transportation), and you usually have an additional hour ride home after school.

Another thing to consider is parents who are able enroll their kids in schools outside their regional public school. If you change schools the distance to travel can be significantly greater than your local school, and riding a school bus would not be an option. A friend had a son enrolled in a charter school that required an hour drive one way to the school. Public schools aren't exactly known for being great, but sometimes local ones are terrible. Parents want their kids to have better chances so they put them in a different school.

If a family has a kid who can now drive and they have an extra car, or can afford to purchase one, you can see why they may be eager to provide their kid a vehicle. Many families have two working parents with schedules that likely don't always line up with school arrival and departure times. Having a kid who can now get themselves to and from school can makes the parents lives much less complicated. Also, most families have more than one kid. Now the kid who can drive is able to take their siblings to school.

Having a car is absolutely a privilege, but unfortunately in most places in the US it is also a necessity as well. Sometimes that necessity starts at 16 here.

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ixamnis@reddit

Yes. I drove myself to school from the age of 15.

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YoshiandAims@reddit

Very common in rural areas and suburbs, when the bus (owned by the school) ride can be an hour or two long.

The busses do not run for extracurricular activities that run for an hour before school or hours after.

There's not much infrastructure in the way of public transport.

In the city, there are more options.

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Pomeranian18@reddit

Not common in city schools or many suburban schools. Common in more rural schools.

There is no way you're seeing all American high schools "on Google Maps." We have 10,000s schools. The ones you're seeing on are a certain type that movies like to show, mostly pretend (including actors in their 30s playing high schoolers), with some real stuff.

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ChessieChesapeake@reddit

I have a cousin who was driving to school at 14. Kansas with a farm permit.

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DizzyLead@reddit

Los Angeles area here. While a substantial amount of high schoolers who are old enough do drive, I’d say a majority of them get to school in other ways (public transportation, getting dropped off, etc.). Our school had parking lots, but I would say that they were predominantly populated by the cars of faculty and staff, maybe 20-30 were students (with an unknown amount of students parking off campus). When I was a student in high school in the ‘90s, only one of my friends throughout the years had a car, though she would walk home as her family’s apartment was close. But once in a while I would walk with her after school in the hopes that I could bum a ride home.

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tiimsliim@reddit

Yeah, but I mean it also doubles as parking for people who show up for high school sports. My highschool had a massive lot and it still wasn’t large enough for some football games.

They also had the town fair in that parking lot.

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MeringueRemote9352@reddit

My kids high school is brand new but doesn’t have enough parking for all the drivers. They park across a field and walk through it to the school. The school is just under 3 miles from our home with no bussing (either from the district or the city).

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gioraffe32@reddit

In the suburbs, absolutely. I drove to school everyday once I could start driving. But that mainly because where I lived, there was no bus (I didn't go to the "correct" school for where I lived). Before I could drive, my parents had to drop me off and pick me up each day.

Now there weren't enough spots for ALL students and their vehicles. At least at my school. So there a priority parking system. Seniors (12 grade, the last grade) were all basically guaranteed a parking pass, if they wanted one. Juniors (11th grade) were next in priority. Sophomores (10th grade) had even less priority. So far fewer of them would be allowed to park at school. And then Freshmen (9th grade) were not at all allowed to park at the school. Which would've been rare, anyway, due to how age correlates with grades. 9th graders are typically 14-15yo, below the usual age of 16yo to get a drivers license.

And of course, not everyone can drive. And not everyone who can, does. Due to having to pay for gas, a family not having an additional vehicle available for their kid, or just not allowing their kid to drive. So plenty of high schoolers still took the school busses. It's not like they were empty. Though it was also common for younger students to try and find rides from their older friends/family who do drive, too. However, some states have restrictions on newer, younger drivers on how many passengers they can have and the ages. But a lot of young drivers ignore that. I know I often did.

So yeah, completely normal, especially in suburban and rural parts of the US.

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ABelleWriter@reddit

Sure, plenty of teenagers drive themselves, but I also want to point out the amount of staff members highschools have. The one closest to my house, in a small/mid sized city, has 132 people on staff. So 132 cars in their parking lot are for people who work there.

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MattieShoes@reddit

Is this actually reality?

Yes.

How do that many teenagers afford their own cars, insurance, and gas?

They may get help from parents -- a hand-me-down car, help with insurance, whatever.

Is this strictly a suburban thing, or is it normal everywhere across the US?

Mostly suburban/rural. Urban areas likely have less parking spaces and more access to mass transit.

My school district didn't have a high school so I had to travel to another district. Bus service was available the first two years, but there was no bus service in the last two years. I got a ride with a friend at age 16, and got my own car for age 17.

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Tabitheriel@reddit

I went to school in New Jersey, and I walked to school. My sister's high school had a parking lot and some kids had (older) cars. Naomi bought a shitty old car with her own money.

Yes. My suburban high school had a very large parking lot. A decent amount of kids got a car when they turned 16. The norm was that it was a hand me down but there was a shocking number of brand new and very expensive cars that kids got at 16. You would absolutely see the occasional brand new Mercedes in the student lot. This was 25 years ago so things have likely changed.

Some kids had part time jobs, but those jobs in no way brought in enough income to actually cover the cost of the car. The most common car was an older hand me down though. Which in those days would have been a car from the late 1980s or early 1990s. A 10 year old car in 2001 was likely junk. As where a 10 year old car today is a 2016 model and would be way better.

I grew up in a small town of a few thousand people and my high school had 4 towns like this that went to it. The high school was 15 mins in the car from where I lived, and that was on curvy rural roads with hills and woods so no way to walk. I biked a few times in nice weather but it didn’t feel safe because there were minimal shoulders on the roads.

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ZaphodG@reddit

My last year and a half of High School, I drove.

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Britton120@reddit

i grew up in a suburb in the US, and we did not have busses for the high school (bussing stopped for students after 8th grade). And this city had not public transportation of its own.

So this also creates a problem where 9th and 10th graders can't drive yet BUT need to get to school.

Anyway, if you lived close enough you could walk or bike. Your parents could drop you off. If you have friends who are older or older siblings who can drive they probably will take you. This also encourages you to get involved with extra-curriculars and make friends with upper-classmen, in part so you can get a ride to and from school. And then when you're a junior or senior you pay it forward.

Most people didn't get a brand new car when they turned 16 or something. Usually it was the parents or grandparents getting a new car and then gifting the old car to the kid. My first car was an old minivan.

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Sheila_Monarch@reddit

Very common. Or at least it was until Gen Z became too afraid to do anything, including learn to drive. But my parents couldn’t WAIT to hand over the keys to my mom’s old car. She got a new one, and she got an on-staff errand runner and younger sibling school drop/pickup person in the process. In addition to not having to drive ME to all the places I needed to be. It was a win-win all around.

Nobody in my school got a brand new car except for the most spoiled rotten few, which somehow they inevitably wrapped around a tree in less than a year. But for the most part, people either got a parent’s hand me down car, or whatever piece of shit rust bucket they could afford with their saved up burger flipping or lawnmowing money. The overwhelming majority of cars were 10 or more years old, and often in hilariously bad shape. Helping friends push start cars was like a whole extracurricular sporting event at 3:15 PM.

As for insurance, most people‘s parents just added them on their insurance. A kid couldn’t get an insurance policy on their own anyway.

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band-of-horses@reddit

The day I no longer had to drive my kids to school every day was a glorious day for me.

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lookandfind679@reddit

Drove my car the last two years of high school. We live in the burbs, it's a long walk to school and the buses are notoriously late and overcrowded.

Riker_Omega_Three@reddit

It was way more common when cars were more affordable.

Lots more carpooling these days

But yeah

I started driving myself to school the day I turned 16

And I afforded it because I hustled jobs starting around 12 and got my first part time job at 15.

Teenagers routinely drive older cars, cheap cars...and the cheaper the car, the cheaper to insure.

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NetDork@reddit

I was a suburb kid. Our high school had multiple large parking lots. One was commandeered by the band for marching practice in the fall, though.

I started with a $200 motorcycle in 9th/10th grade, then my mom got a new (to them) car, dad took mom's old car, and I took dad's OLD car.

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No_Seaworthiness8176@reddit

I'm in Idaho. My son attends the largest HS in the State. It has almost 2000 students and almost 400 student parking spaces. My son uses one of them, but that lot is usually pretty full.

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arcteryx17@reddit

My parents drove to school, I drove to school, and all of my kids drove or drive to school.

My kids needed it more than I did. I do not live in the schooldiayrict they go to so the back and forth is not doable with work and after school activities

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Derwin0@reddit

Yes, very common.

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Pop-19502020@reddit

Kids

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Llyrithra@reddit

I went to highschool in rural Idaho. Even with a lot that could hold 150+ cars, all of the surrounding neighborhood streets were absolutely packed with students’ cars. In Idaho, you can (or at least could at the time, might have changed since I moved away ~15 years ago) take driver’s education at 14.5 years old and get your license at 15.

epppennn@reddit

I grew up in a suburb of Washington DC. We had a large lot for students to drive themselves to school. We were charged something like $1,000/year for a parking permit. In protest of the high cost, students who typically drove (along with their carpool friends) all took their designated buses one day and it overwhelmed the bus system. The school system counted on students driving themselves and friends so when too many took the bus, there wasn’t enough bus space making them to run extra routes and causing a massive delay in the middle and elementary school bus schedule. The school ended up dropping the cost of parking permits to $150/months. This was back in like 2002.

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gravely_serious@reddit

Not for us. We had to park on the streets around the school. Nightmare if you didn't get there a little early.

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scottypotty79@reddit

In the suburbs, parents often hang on to an older car as their kid is approaching driving age so they can have a first car. When I turned 16 I was given my grandpa’s old Ford pickup truck. I quickly got an after school job at the supermarket so I could pay for my gas and insurance and I was proud to drive that old rusty beater to school.

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tila1993@reddit

My middle/high school had kids from 3 towns and like 6 unincorporated communities so kids drive.

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Angry_GorillaBS@reddit

Very common in more rural locations. Kids like to drive -or at least they used to, these days half of em don't even seem to want a license. And nobody wants to spend an hour or 2 riding the bus.

In the more populated areas(small cities) it's not as common because they walk home.

I'm not sure what it's like in bigger cities.

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ThePickleConnoisseur@reddit

My high school had like 3k students and it serves a pretty big area. We are talking 20 minute driving commutes before traffic. In the suburbs driving a car is a requirement to survive.

Parents push kids to get their license so they can be independent and help around. My parents wanted me to get it so I could pick my sister up from school and get to school on my own. For most people first cars are old beaters unless you are rich

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MarkNutt25@reddit

I would guess that a large majority of teenagers' cars are just their parents' old ones. When these parents buy a new car, rather than trading in the old one, they often just keep it, and let their teenager use it.

Yes, I got my learners permit at 15 1/2 and lisc at 16. My mom made me get it as early as possible because there were no buses and it was too far to walk.

I also had to get a part time job, pay for my car, gas, and insurance AND do regular high school/college prep/volunteer work. Uuuugh

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tinaismediocre@reddit

I went to a suburban highschool with 700 students and about 100 student parking spots. High School seniors who drove were guaranteed a spot (probably 60-70 kids in a class of 130) and then the remainder could be raffled off amongst underclassmen with cars.

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rockandroller@reddit

The large parking lots as others have said serve multiple functions - school events pack these lots with parents' and relatives' cars; staff all drive to work. Mostly our public transit systems are so terrible there is no way for the vast majority of people to get to a place like this in a reasonable amount of time (or at all) via public transit. There are no public buses that have passed by 2 of 3 schools my kid has attended, one of those is pretty close to a road, the other you would have to walk about a half mile at least and it is often driving rain and snow for half the year here, not great for someone dressed nicely for a teaching job, plus there are no sidewalks for the bulk of the journey. Many districts have very limited school busing and some have no busing at all due to lack of funding.

I live in the affluent area of the Chicago North Shore. So it's not unusual to see a 16 year old driving a huge SUV to school that costs more than my first condo

Also one young guy works for a local pizza parlor and normally he drives his own car, a fairly beat-up Honda, but for a few weeks he was obviously borrowing his parent's car so was driving a huge EV Hummer

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Dpg2304@reddit

I drove myself to school every day in grades 11 and 12. I lived in the suburbs of Washington, DC.

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Formal-Telephone5146@reddit

I grew up in a Working Poor area No parents had the money to buy their Teenager a Car Some Kids did get jobs and saved and bought a not so nice car for cheap. 12 miles away was a nice affluent suburb it was kids 17 with better cars then my father

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Got my first car at 17. It was $1800 USD which I was able to pay off over the course of a summer making $13 an hour. It's not like teens are getting brand new $30k cars, unless they have a rich family. A beater car works fine

It's not easy to find used cars anymore for cheap, and I've heard that a lot of teens don't even get their drivers licenses at 16 anymore, so I think it's becoming less normal now as everything has become more expensive, but still pretty normal.

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44035@reddit

In America, when your car is old and beat up, you often give it to your high school kid. Lots of these kids are driving very modest vehicles.

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ActuaLogic@reddit

Yes, but the reason for the separate parking lots is to give teachers better access to parking. Keep in mind that the US is built around the automobile, with the average person driving about half and hour each way between work and home. In some parts of California, commutes are more than one hour each way. Access to grocery stores and other retail also requires a car in most parts of the US.

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Zendarrroni@reddit

I went to the largest high school in the state of Alabama in the early 2000’s. There were about 3500 students. I drove my senior year. It would take 30 minutes to go a mile from the interstate exit to the parking lot. My senior class had 960 people. Hoover was a well off city and most kids got cars when they were 16. Some drove beaters some drove BMW’s. There was one kid whose dad owned a car dealership. He wrapped his Camero around a tree on a Friday and Monday morning he showed up in something new.

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Ruevein@reddit

My Highschool in a suburban area had 2 lots. A front lot meant for some admin fold (like principle and the VP parking spots) as well as for parents dropping or picking kids up outside of normal times. (Sports practice, 0 period, detention club etc)

Then there was a massive back lot for faculty and student parking. the real reason this lot was so big? it was the parking lot for the Football stadium the 4 Highschools in my city all shared and my schools Large Basketball/volleyball building, and our baseball/softball fields. So during the school day it gave a ton of parking if you had your license and drove, but after school served as parking for the various sports teams we had or that used our facilities.

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Independent_End_6941@reddit

The United States is basically 50 countries in a trench coat. So the answer to this varies by state. But yes, kids can become fully licensed drivers while still in highschool. In some states that's only 18 year olds, which would be the graduating class

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dowagermeow@reddit

My parents got me the basic-est Toyota Tercel when I got my drivers license. I had dance/drill at 5:30 am, school got out at 2:30, and I had soccer until 4 or 7:30 some nights, and it was really difficult for both of them to get me places when both of them worked full-time. I rode my bike to and from school soccer practice for a while and it was unequivocally ass because suburban drivers.

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Memasefni@reddit

I drive to school my junior and senior years in cars that I purchased.

Public transit is not readily available in large parts of the country.

Important to remember that cities aren’t walkable at all in the US, so unless you’re really rural or live super close to school it’s very hard to get there otherwise. There are buses for school and occasionally public transport if you live in the city, but they’re crowded and in my experience you have to wake up extra early to take them to school :(

Most teenagers, especially 16+ own or borrow a car and buy their own gas by having a part time job. Sometimes parents will pay for insurance and etc.

Personally, I have to drive down a gravel road and then a highway to get to school, and there are usually a couple hundred cars in our parking lot.

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chesbay7@reddit

A lot of kids take the bus but yes, a lot of kids drive to school as well. I drove to school in my senior year.

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KristyKrispito@reddit

From Texas - yes. Big time. Sometimes the busses won’t even drive out to your address. And the child is usually driving a “beater” or a cheap, junk car. Yes the parents pay the costs. Kids can also get a job starting at 16 so some may cover their own gas.

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ParticularYak4401@reddit

Yep. And my former high school still has students parking on the city street despite the fact the school was rebuilt about 20 years ago. They still don’t have enough student parking. The irony.

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jmilred@reddit

The answer is community dependent. In some communities, it is almost considered a right of passage to start driving to school. The schools put in the large parking lots because it actually saves them money in the long run. The other two options are parent drop-off/pick-up, or school buses. In my area, the majority of students use buses as the start times of school do not coincide with typical start times of parents working.

By putting the parking lots in and charging for permits for students to park, the school saves money compared to busing, even with maintenance costs of the parking lot included.

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theycallmethevault@reddit

At the high schools in my home town only Juniors & Seniors could get parking passes, so we’re talking 17-18 year olds. And it wasn’t super common because not everyone had a car, those massive parking lots only had about 100 spaces, that’s not even 1/4 of the senior class.

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beccamaxx@reddit

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Chance-Jellyfish-302@reddit

Optimal_Shirt6637@reddit

Yup, very common in the suburbs

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onegirlarmy1899@reddit

My senior year of high school, I got my mom to work, came back home to get my siblings, dropped them at school, and then went to school myself. After school, I picked up the siblings, dropped them at home, went back to school for activities, picked up my mom, and finally went home for the night.

I grew up in a very rural area. We had one high school for the whole county. The county was over 600 square miles (1554 square km) in area. I knew kids that lived in the remotest parts of the county that had like a 30 minute drive to school. If they took the bus, they would've had to catch the bus at like 6 AM or earlier to be at school at 8 AM.

So, yeah, everyone drove to school once they got their license.

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Wunktacular@reddit

Driving is essential for most adults in the US, so it's best to start them with a short, local commute in a familiar environment.

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nelsne@reddit

The rich ones do

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Sirhc978@reddit

I live in Kenya

Don't forget Kenya is slightly bigger than Texas. The answer really depends on where in the US you live.

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itsmyparty45@reddit

Very common. Many high school students have jobs and can at least pay for gas and maintenance.

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Ill-Butterscotch1337@reddit

No it's not common. It's definitely less than half.

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ATLUTD030517@reddit

At a lot of schools, in decently affluent areas anyhow, there are more kids with cars than there are parking spots. When I was in school all seniors got a spot and most juniors did as well, sophomores with cars mostly parked off campus. There was a movie theater about a ten minute walk from school, that's where many of the sophomores and unlucky juniors parked.

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BlackQuartzSphinx_@reddit

I teach at a rural high school in an area with no public transit to speak of.

My students' options for getting to school are limited. If they live in town they'll walk or ride their bikes.

If they live out of town, we do have school busses, but many of my students live on farms and ranches out beyond the bus routes. Their parents are usually working the fields, so it's up to them to get themselves (and any younger siblings) to school.

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CFBCoachGuy@reddit

Remember that very few places in the U.S. have reliable public transit. In some rural areas, it’s often difficult just to get a school but to pass your house. Cars are often necessary. The exception is large cities where public transport is reliable.

Why at high schools? A few reasons. A car is often the first real independence and freedom a kid gets, so having one is a big deal (“sweet sixteen”). Having a car also opens up more flexibility when it comes to work and extracurricular activities.

Some pay for cars with summer jobs and the like (almost no kid is getting a brand new car). But often it’s a gift from their parents. Often the ownership of the car will still lie with the parents so they will pay for insurance also.

McFlyyouBojo@reddit

Yes and no. Depends on where. Mine has enough parking for most seniors but not all. A few juniors would get one if they weren't all taken. I just walked because I lived about 1/2 a mile away

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Ok-Big2807@reddit

Our society if very, very car centric. It’s that simple

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Roam1985@reddit

tarheel_204@reddit

I grew up in a rural area and driving yourself to school once you turned 16 was extremely common. Second most common was a parent driving you to school. The only people I knew who took the bus had a parent(s) who worked and couldn’t drive them.

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frecklefae@reddit

I went to a small school. The parking lot wasn't huge but there was a dedicated one to students. It was pretty normal for kids with cars to drive to school. I didn't but had friends that did and would ride with them sometimes.

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a17451@reddit

Where I went to high-school we had dedicated overflow parking across the street and you had to be careful not to park in front of the wrong businesses

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TiFist@reddit

This is not uncommon. It depends a little bit on where you live, but yes.

The car they drive is often owned by their parents, who pay for some or all of the expenses.

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One-Hand-Rending@reddit

Obviously in big cities like Chicago and NY, kids take public transport, but other areas its pretty common for kids to drive.

We have money here...our kids get cars.

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