Well, tomorrow after school I have my road test for my (almost) full licence!

In Ontario, we have a "Graduated Licencing System".

You start with your G1, which has the following conditions:

- Must have a licenced driver with 4+ years experience in the passenger seat.
- Must not drive between midnight - 5am.
- Must have a Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) of 0.00
- Must only drive on roads with speed limits less than 90km/h.

I'm now going for my G2, which has the following conditions:

- Must have a BAC of 0.00
- Must ensure the number of passengers match the number of working seatbelts.
- After midnight, only 3 passengers under 19 may be in the car.

The next level up is the G licence, which is unrestricted.

So, I'm quite excited that I finally get my (almost) full licence. It's been fairly inconvenient (for both my parents and I) having to always have my parents in the car when going anywhere, since I live quite far from the majority of my friends.

Unfortunately, insurance here is horrible for new drivers. I've been looking at cars with my dad for the past little while, and I'll be purchasing one likely this week. What I had planned to do was put my car under my dad's name, and go on the insurance as a secondary driver (which would cost me about $80/month). However, the insurance broker's telling us that this isn't possible because you can't be the primary driver of more than one car (which is an outright lie because my dad is the primary driver of two vehicles currently, as are quite a few people I work with).

Knowing insurance companies, I'll likely not be able to get around this. This means that (from the online quotes I've gathered for possible cars that I'll be buying) I'll be paying in the area of $225-$275 a month for my insurance. If this isn't bad enough, this price is including a "Graduated Licence Discount" which only applies to G2 drivers. This means that after I drive for a year and become eligible for my full G licence, my rates will go UP instead of down.

So the insurance is completely absurd, but unfortunately it's what I have to deal with for the next 2 years or so.


Anyway, what about you? When do/did you get your full licence? What were the costs associated with your first car and whatnot?






P.S. I'll let you know how my road test goes.

Oh no, Marc's on the road unsupervised! RUN!



The freedom you have with your own transport is magnificent

I passed my test in October '07, it took me a while to pass as i had a lot of nervous problems
As for the cost of driving, it's not been too bad for me; i'm in the process of buying my mum's car off her (read: need to go to the bank ) and i've got the insurance for it sorted which was a lot cheaper than i thought (fully comp, on my own for £350 ) so i'm delighted with that. I think it's mainly because of my age that i got it a bit cheaper but i was expecting at least double that!

w00t

As you may have seen me mention I got my G exactly 1 month ago (yep, Feb. 23rd). And I don't really have my own car, though when I'm in Ottawa I have like 99% use of my dad's old Honda Accord (after he bought himself a Lexus xD)

I think my insurance is something like that as well, but my parents are paying it. The only thing I'm really paying for directly is the gas

I have my temp. license, this Tuesday I will be scheduling a road test to get my real license. Ive been driving myself for at least 5 days. Since i'm 18 no restrictions (besides drinking, and I know I will never do that anyways.). If I was under 18 then I would have to have someone 21 or older, that has at least 5-10 years of experience, and may only be a parent or guardian, or some other type of family member that has 5-10 years of driving.

Posted By Graham on 23rd Mar 09 at 10:21am

 

Oh no, Marc's on the road unsupervised! RUN!



The freedom you have with your own transport is magnificent

I passed my test in October '07, it took me a while to pass as i had a lot of nervous problems
As for the cost of driving, it's not been too bad for me; i'm in the process of buying my mum's car off her (read: need to go to the bank ) and i've got the insurance for it sorted which was a lot cheaper than i thought (fully comp, on my own for £350 ) so i'm delighted with that. I think it's mainly because of my age that i got it a bit cheaper but i was expecting at least double that!

Who'd you get your insurance with? o:

Posted By Michael on 24th Mar 09 at 11:59am

 

Posted By Graham on 23rd Mar 09 at 10:21am

 

Oh no, Marc's on the road unsupervised! RUN!



The freedom you have with your own transport is magnificent

I passed my test in October '07, it took me a while to pass as i had a lot of nervous problems
As for the cost of driving, it's not been too bad for me; i'm in the process of buying my mum's car off her (read: need to go to the bank ) and i've got the insurance for it sorted which was a lot cheaper than i thought (fully comp, on my own for £350 ) so i'm delighted with that. I think it's mainly because of my age that i got it a bit cheaper but i was expecting at least double that!

Who'd you get your insurance with? o:

Mine was with Churchill. I got a bit of a discount as my mum is with them too, but i don't know exactly how much. Use their site to get a quote - i tried with them after trying on comparethemarket and i found their own site was about £200 cheaper

Sorry for not replying sooner, been pretty sick since yesterday.

Anyway, I got my licence (messed up the parallel parking a little, but that's not overly surprising. ) but apart from that I did pretty well.

Lucky, don't have my license yet.

Posted By Marc on 25th Mar 09 at 7:50pm

 

Sorry for not replying sooner, been pretty sick since yesterday.

Anyway, I got my licence (messed up the parallel parking a little, but that's not overly surprising. ) but apart from that I did pretty well.

hey, I messed up my parallel parking on my G2 test too . Though I pretty much did it perfectly on my G test

Congrats

Posted By Jason on 26th Mar 09 at 12:39am

 

Posted By Marc on 25th Mar 09 at 7:50pm

 

Sorry for not replying sooner, been pretty sick since yesterday.

Anyway, I got my licence (messed up the parallel parking a little, but that's not overly surprising. ) but apart from that I did pretty well.

hey, I messed up my parallel parking on my G2 test too . Though I pretty much did it perfectly on my G test

Congrats

Well one of the bonuses of my Driver's Training course was that I got an hour before my test to go over stuff again, and during that hour I kept parking too far from the curb. So when it was time for the actual test, I went further than what I thought was good and ended up hitting the curb.

Posted By Marc on 26th Mar 09 at 1:05am

 

Posted By Jason on 26th Mar 09 at 12:39am

 

Posted By Marc on 25th Mar 09 at 7:50pm

 

Sorry for not replying sooner, been pretty sick since yesterday.

Anyway, I got my licence (messed up the parallel parking a little, but that's not overly surprising. ) but apart from that I did pretty well.

hey, I messed up my parallel parking on my G2 test too . Though I pretty much did it perfectly on my G test

Congrats

Well one of the bonuses of my Driver's Training course was that I got an hour before my test to go over stuff again, and during that hour I kept parking too far from the curb. So when it was time for the actual test, I went further than what I thought was good and ended up hitting the curb.

I hit the curb as well xD

heh, after my driving course I pretty much had to re-learn most parking stuff all over again because the driving instructor's car was a lot shorter than mine so parking them felt quite different