Car Buying and Graduated Licensing Give Teens Practice
Posted by LorMet Webteam on Tue, Jul 13, 2010 @ 08:54 AM
If your teen has been hinting about getting a car of his/her own, LorMet Community Federal Credit Union offers 100% financing on new vehicles and will loan up to the retail value (as rated by NADA) of a used vehicle.
Lormet Can Help Get That Car
Visit our website to see a list of top performing car dealerships for LorMet members. Shopping for a car can be a good exercise in financial literacy—looking up values and comparing prices can help prepare teens for life as an adult.
Don't Forget Safety When Car Buying
While the decisions over who pays for a new car can be a big deal, an even bigger deal is ensuring that your teen is safe out there on the roads. For the most part, the days when a state department of motor vehicles would just hand a teen an unrestricted license to drive are gone. With very few exceptions, states have instituted graduated driver licensing, so teens get some, but not all the privileges that licensed adult drivers get on the roads.
Many teens balk at the thought of having a license that they see as representative of freedom, be restricted. These regulations were put in place to make certain that teen drivers, their passengers and others who are out of the road can remain safe.
Some graduated licensing statutes include:
- Being 15.5 or 16 to get a learner’s permit
- Having to wait a minimum of 3 months between getting the learner’s permit and applying for an intermediate license
- Needing at least 30 hours of supervised driving practice
- Being at least 16 before getting an intermediate license
- Restrictions on driving at night
- Restrictions on the passengers that teens can carry
- Being at least 17 to get an unrestricted license