What to do if your child will be old enough to drive in 2025

Credit: Guest article courtesy of Ashley Winston, Palmdale Car Finders.

My daughter desperately wants to drive. While this makes me incredibly proud, she's only 12 so will need to wait a little longer...

I know a good amount about this scenario as we're regularly searching for 'first cars' for clients' offspring. Here are three things any parent should consider.

1) Does your child actually want to drive?

I had my first driving lesson at 09:00 on my birthday… despite it being a Sunday. I was absolutely gagging to learn to drive! (Nobody reading this will be even slightly surprised by that.)

But times have changed. Today, many young potential drivers are happy just to be young public transport users and young Uber riders.

So, check that your kid actually does want to learn to drive.

2) Insurance is a killer

Get insurance quotes before you do anything! And don't expect to be able to add them to the family car.

Insurers only want to cover new drivers on small, underpowered, boring cars… and they will probably want a 'black box' to track their movements.

3) This is your child - put them in a safe car

Most of us can handle a car which occasionally breaks down. (Sadly, I am VERY used to this!) But we don't want our kids to be stuck somewhere unsafe.

And we parents have a natural instinct to protect our babies.

The easiest way around this is to spend more to get a better car.

A £1,000 car is a risky purchase. Even a £5,000 needs to be very carefully selected. Many of our clients spend £10,000+. It's a lot of money, but what price do we put on our child's safety.

As always, if you need advice on this, or any aspect of searching for a new or used car, just ask the CiD team to organise a 20 minute complimentary consultancy call with the ever helpful Ashley.