Keep Conor out of the sheep truck.

LOL - heard this on the news this morning and re-thought the 'teach Conor to drive early' strategy (Don't worry folks, it's not happening just yet ... although I may have a future motocross champion on my hands )

I love the "Police gave the 10 year-old a warning, but further punishment was left to the family." If it were mine he wouldn't be able to sit down for a month let alone drive!

Quite amazing, I wonder if they used their indicators when turning.

Ironically enough, the Aussie motorcycle champion for whom I worked in Europe, began driving a PeeWee bike at a very early age, supposedly two years old as legend would have it. I don't doubt it as the guy was very adept on a bike and not that adept off of it.
He began competing very early too as soon as the categories opened up for him. On his autobiography they stated that he was competing at four. He had to cool his heels to turn fourteen I recall for the adult category!

I think that in a rural environment, kids would occasionally drive tractors or even small vehicles around early. The state of Idaho is rural and they let fourteen year olds drive during restricted hours for farming and school. My brothers' main thrill at staying up in rural Oregon at my grandmother's place was driving the tractor around with a little trailor on it. We have many pictures of this.

I personally taught our children how to do the most basic manoeuvers so that they could help out in an accident if one of us were unconscious. Automatic transmissions weren't common in Europe so we thought it best.
My father taught us all the basics of shifting gears and starting a car before we actually drove. We all learned standard shift easily because he taught us early. Few Americans drive standard shift much. I think I was brought up to respect the privilege of driving a vehicle and all of us are like that. None of us jumped the gun.

I see the way my daughter drives, a bit fast but, responsibly and I hope her brother is as responsible, belonging to the male gender as he does...uh oh.

It happened to me- I was brought up on a farm, and learned to drive on an old John Deere tractor. I was about 12 at the time.

We also had an old paddock-basher- a small Austin flattop truck that used to cop an absolute pasting, until it met a hidden tree-stump. (It was NOT me driving, Mum!!)

In those far-off days, drivers licence tests were done by the local police. Our nearest police station was a one-man show, and was only open in business hours. I recall going to get my learners permit, late on a Friday afternoon- I answered a couple of road-rule questions (one of which was about traffic lights.. goodness knows why I got THAT one, as there was not a traffic light for about 200 kilometers in any direction!), and then asked the constable if I had to go for a test drive.

He replied "Nah, I have seen you driving around town for the last two years, and you are OK.". He then did all the paperwork in record time, closed the station, and bolted for the pub..

Well at least the motorcycle rider's parents ran a 'panel beaters' business in NSW! I mean, they had everything handy for their three competitive motorcyclist sons.