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My mom started letting me drive her Chevy Celebrity around our country backroads for a while before I got my learner's permit. In Virginia (at least then, don't know about now) you could get a learner's permit at 15 years and 8 months. I took classroom driver's ed as the second half of my gym class in 10th grade, and then had several weeks of behind-the-wheel training provided by the gym coach with an extra brake pedal on the passenger's side of the car. It had a plastic sign on the roof warning everyone that I was a student driver (looked like a pizza delivery sign). When I went to the DMV to get my license, I had to take the written portion only of the test. At that time, and again, not sure how it is now, if you made an A in classroom and behind-the-wheel, you didn't have to take the practical part.
When my dad helped me buy my first car, I had no idea how to drive a manual. He took me to the parking lot of the elementary school on a Saturday and taught me. When I was ready to try it on a a real road that afternoon, the first thing I did was smash a bird flying across the road into a billion pieces.
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