The transition from childhood to adulthood is tough enough for teenagers; they’re dealing with school, relationships and spots amongst many other things, so is it time we started to give them a break when they first start out as a young car driver?

I’d love to answer yes here, and I can honestly say that when I was a teenage driver I desperately wanted things happen more easily, but when I look back on it, all the hassle and financial hardship associated with teenage driving probably did me more good than harm.

There’s no escaping the fact that it is expensive for young drivers to afford to buy a car and arrange car insurance for teenagers, but it kind of has to be like that for a couple of very good reasons.

Imagine as an 18 year old you could easily afford to insure any car you wanted. I can say without any hesitation that my driving history would have began with a Ferrari, it would have impressed the hell out of my friends, made me really popular with girls, and probably have killed me within a month of me owning it!

Safety is the biggest factor we need to contend with when we consider young drivers; as a group they are inexperienced, they drive too fast and they cause more accidents than any other age group (not all of them, but statistically as a group they do). So there is a need for them to serve a driving apprenticeship in a cheap, safe and preferably slow vehicle.

I don’t believe for one second that young drivers are bad drivers, far from it, I just believe they make some poor choices when they are behind the wheel and I will write more about this in my next article.

Also, what sort of life lesson would it have taught me if I’d been allowed to buy a Ferrari as my first car? No need to save to get what I want, no need to set a goal and work towards it and enjoy the satisfaction of achieving it (I have never owned a Ferrari, I grew out of that phase).

I know that when I was a young car driver I would have totally disagreed with every word of this article, but just think what I’d have missed out on!