I wish more teenagers would wait longer until they started driving!

Same here, Brian--and I've become pretty opinionated about it.

Out here in Powell, we've lost an inordinately large number of high school students (close to 20) in fatal car accidents over the last few years. The problem became so extreme, the Powell Business and Professional Association stepped in to begin staging for students an annual "mock wreck"--complete with fire, smoke, wailing sirens, the Jaws of Life gizmo, and real paramedics on scene. And STILL the school issues a larger percentage of student parking permits than any high school in the county! Betty wrote a story in MetroPulse about the "Powell Phenomenon" some time back.

Although we didn't plan it this way, my own daughter didn't get her learners permit until age 17 (after high school graduation) and will get her license next week at age 18 (after her freshman year of college)!

In her case, she had difficulty scheduling driver's ed at her high school because she was in AP classes--for which schools offer just a single section of a given class--starting her sophomore year. Those students therefore have to work in any non-AP classes around the availability of scarce AP course offerings.

We looked at a private driving school for her over two summers, too, but she wound up taking dual enrollment classes at Pellissippi State those two summers, following her sophomore and junior years.

I finally taught her to drive myself and sent her off to an urban college campus (UT-Chattanooga) with a learner's permit and no car.

I gotta say--and she'd agree--it was no big deal. In her college setting, about half of students don't have a car on campus. This past school year, three of the four girls in her dorm apartment didn't.

Now, that's not the case at colleges like ETSU or MTSU, located at the end of interstate off-ramps.

Where she attended, though, her social life wasn't impacted in the slightest and she's now a very mature, responsible driver.

My son, who turns 14 next week, cheekily reminded me the other day that he'll "be driving a car in a year." He's about 54 inches tall, weighs maybe 100 pounds, and even by next year would likely need to sit on a phone book to see over the steering wheel.

I'm thinking wait until age 17 for a permit again, and this go-around I'll call it a plan.

At the start of their freshman year, two of the four girls in that dorm apartment had cars on campus. Unfortunately, "Princess," as I called her, totaled hers (as well as a police car) out at Hamilton Place mall while using Daddy's credit card to buy her third new outfit during rush week for her sorority of choice.

Her Mommy and Daddy accompanied her to court and paid her fine and "Princess" did make her sorority. Predictably, though, she got booted a few weeks later after an arrest for public drunkeness. When she went on academic probation by Christmas, Mommy and Daddy elected not to replace the car that school year, but I thought their intervention was probably too little, too late.

I have more stories about "Princess," but you get the point.

Now, I'll confess that my kid, whose high school years were likely quieter than "Princess's," had an experience with underage drinking this past school year, too. In contrast to "Princess," though, my kid volunteered to me her full report about being served at the off-campus home of the president of a collge club she attends.

I commended her for choosing a friend's apartment for the experience over some loosely-managed bar from which she'd have to exit to get home (and reminded her that her parents tend to drink only at home). I also affirmed her decision to limit herself to just one drink (and reminded her that she sees her parents drink only in moderation). I also confessed to her that since the legal drinking age in our era had been 18, not 21, I had partaken of the same adult entertainment at her age. And I reminded her, again, to guard her scholarships and, concern for her continued chastity notwithstanding, to keep those condoms in her purse :-)

I hope you don't disapprove, but I really feel I did all I could do to advise this legal adult of mine who now lives out of town.

I've never been a "cool" parent, but I've tried to be a "calm" one. I like to think on this first parenting try, my kid wound up making better decisions about driving--and about all those other rites of passage--because of it.

I said: "What I don't yet know is how campus security would have treated roommates in the apartment, though, had there been any "bust.""

And I might have added this aside, too: My daughter sometimes sees a young man attending UT-Knoxville when she's home on breaks.

This young man is also a recipient of UT's top-tier Chancellor's Scholarship, among others, and she says he's contended with the same problem this past school year. His response was also avoidance, she says.

Maybe the problem isn't uncommon, but again, how might campus security at either campus have treated these two "good kids," had any "bust" transpired?

Now, there's an observation that gives me peace of mind, Kenny.

If I can determine that a student claiming no involvement in such an incident can request urinalysis, I'll advise my kid that her "avoidance" approach is sufficient next school year--and I can get on with my day!

Bet your daughter wishes you hadn't posted all of this on a public forum.
50Gs is 50Gs, but the chances of that being yanked were pretty small.
Now they're not so small.

My point, Alex, was just that we parents are sometimes uncertain how to guide our kids through the rocky terrain to adult independence, and that there are instances when our missteps can be quite costly.

My apologies if I seemed gauche to attach a dollar amount to this particular high stakes question, but I've spent a pretty concerned 24 hours trying to research its answer.

I'm back now, though, in the hope that I can save another parent the same concern. In fact, this campus's assistant chief deputy for security just phoned me back and chuckled at the zealousness with which a dispatcher in his office had earlier explained my student's responsibility to get involved in any drugs-in-dorms problem.

Contrary to that dispatcher's implication, the good deputy told us "no," his office cannot require any student to "turn informant," whether or not that student receives institutional aid from the university.

In keeping with the dispatcher's advice to me earlier, he confirmed that "yes," his office routinely acts on tips from both students and parents as to situations possibly requiring site visits to students' dorms. Students reporting such problmes are free to choose whether they care to be present in the dorm during such site visits.

He also advised that students hesitant to become "informants" in situations like my student faced may also contact campus security anonymously or may contact their on-site resident assistant (who, as a campus employee, DOES have an obligation to forward such reports to campus security).

Finally, he did speak to my student at length about the importance of her recognizing any situation in which a rules infraction may be life-threatening for the "rule breaker." You may know that an 18 year-old (who was not a UTC student but who was visiting one living on campus) was found dead of a drug overdose on a campus side street just a few weeks back.

He offered (asked, really) to take a report from either my student or me, but we both declined. I explained that my call was really more to seek advice on how I should instruct my student to handle any similar situation in the future.

I'm glad I called him and I hope maybe my sharing details of my family's experience in this question has been helpful to someone.

(Back to that cumbersome paperwork required to get a learner's permit, ConcernedCitizen. Sorry to have taken us on this tangent for so long.)

wet car seat with spit-up in your lap or, if you're a woman, in your purse?