11:40 p.m. on a Friday. The phone buzzed on the nightstand and Tina was up before I was, which is usual. "It's Garrett," she said, and handed it to me, which is also usual when the call might involve a car.
He was fine. The car was fine. He was at a friend's house on the south side, he'd planned to drive one other friend home, and now a third kid needed a ride too. "I can't take two, right?" he asked. Right. I put on my jacket and drove over in the Silverado.
That was the third weekend of his first month with a license, and honestly, it's the call I'd want. He passed his driving test on January 29 and got his intermediate license. Here's how the first month went.
What the state says
Missouri's intermediate license comes with two big rules for a driver his age:
- No driving between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. unless a licensed adult 21 or older is in the car. There are exceptions for school, work and emergencies.
- Passengers. For the first six months, no more than one passenger under 19 who isn't family. After six months, up to three.
Lainey doesn't count against the passenger limit, which she has decided means she is "allowed in the car whenever." We are still discussing that.
Our three rules on top
Tina and I added three of our own the week before the test. We wrote them on an index card and put it in the Civic's glovebox, next to the insurance card. He rolled his eyes. He also signed it.
Phone in the console. Not in his lap, not in a cup holder where it lights up. In the center console with the lid shut. If he needs directions, he sets them before he puts the car in drive.
Text when you arrive. Two letters is enough. "Here." This is for us, not him, and we told him so.
No highway with friends. I-29 and the Belt are fine alone. With a friend in the car, he stays on surface streets for now. A friend in the passenger seat is the biggest distraction a new driver has, and highway speeds don't leave room for it.
Our house curfew is 11 on school nights and midnight on weekends, which is well inside the state's 1 a.m. line. The 11:40 call was inside it too. He was getting ready to leave on time when the extra-kid problem came up.
Most of it. He drives himself to school, to the friend's house, to Hy-Vee when Tina sends him with a list. He's put about 900 miles on the Civic since the test. The texts show up. He hasn't had a single close call that I know of, and he tells us things, which I'm told is not guaranteed.
The one thing we noticed early: he drives a little fast on Frederick Avenue, in the way where he's at 40 in a 35 because everyone else is at 40. I mentioned it once. The driving-score app on his phone, which our insurer gave us a discount to try, will mention it louder.
About that. Adding a licensed 16-year-old took our six-month premium from $1,240 to $2,380. That's $1,140 more every six months, or $190 a month, which is a number I said out loud at dinner. Then this month the good student discount came through, with his 3.4 GPA, and took $164 back off. Garrett has done the math on what a B-plus is worth per semester. He seemed motivated by it.
What we changed after the first month
Two things.
First, the late call. When I picked up the third kid that night, I realized the rule only works if calling home is easy. So we told him plainly: if the passenger limit, the weather, or anything else puts you in a spot, call, and nobody's mad. You will not get a speech on the drive. He knows that now because he got no speech.
Second, "text when you arrive" got a small addition: text when you leave, too, if it's after dark. That way if the arrival text doesn't come, we know when to start wondering. It's what I'd ask of a driver at work, and nobody at work has ever thanked me for it either.
Watching his taillights go down our street that first Saturday morning, alone in the car, was a feeling I won't try to describe. Then I went inside and updated the spreadsheet.