Meltdowns and car crashes...

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I am 15 and learning to drive. Today my mom went to my school and talked to my teacher and princabull about me learning to drive. They said they don't think I should be driving at all. They said that if I was in the car by myself and I crashed, I would have a meltdown, runaway and be sent to jail because the cops will think I am a crack head. It is true that I still runway when I get to stressed and I am alone. I think I should be allowed to learn to drive.
But lets say I did run, and get caught by the cops what do I do then?? Normally if I am running I am way stressed out. When I get like that I can't speak for about 20 to 30 minenuts. The words just don't come out no matter how much I want them to. What should I do?

maybe you should wait till your older. I waited till I was 18 to get my license.

Running from a car crash is called hit and run. It is a very serious crime. If you do it, and the cops catch you, you better get a lawyer and shut up. It is very unlikely they will say "Oh it's AS, he's cool." You may have to go to trial, or accept a plea bargin and get a criminal record.

Hit and Run carries jail time (in some states more than 1 year) heavy fines, loss of license, insurance policies often carry riders that drivers who hit and run are not covered so you'll get sued by the driver of the other car since he now has to pay to fix his car.

I hate to say this, but unless you are absolutely sure you would not run in a car accident, you are putting yourself at a HUGE risk by driving.

Kaelynn, 15 is very young to be driving in any case. It's important for drivers to respond correctly to emergency situations. Important that they be mature enough to respond correctly by training and by their very nature. Why not wait a few years? You may mature out of your current nature of running and shutting down when stressed.

I witnessed a three part accident. A driver rear-ended a stopped car which was waiting to make a left turn. The driver who did the rear-ending jumped out of her still moving car and ran to a grassy area, sat down and rocked back and forth. In the mean time her car continued to drive forward and hit the car in front of it two more times until a pedestrian ran and jumped into the running car and turned it off.

The man who was driving the car which was hit (3 times) was trying to evade a driver-less car! He had a toddler in his car.

The running, rocking young woman put 4 people at risk; the other driver, the toddler, the pedestrian who jumped into her car to turn it off and herself.

That young woman was by nature an unfit driver. By nature, in response to stress she was a runner and rocker; not by nature someone who drives her car to a safe place and turns it off. (Also, she couldn't speak for about 20 minutes.)

She was charged with reckless driving but not taken to jail. I sure hope she stopped driving until she matured out of her dangerous reactions to stress. I do not want her driving anywhere near me or anyone else, because it's too dangerous.

There is more to consider in your decision to drive than whether or not you might get into trouble. Give some consideration to your potential victims while mulling this decision.

If you get in a car wreck, and run away from the scene of the accident. You get charged with hit and run which is oftentimes a felony. In Ohio property damage or theft of $500 or more is a felony. If you kill or seriously injury a person it's a felony. If it's a fatality it's automatic jail time of likely 5+ years. As you'll get charged with hit and run, and vehicular homicide. There's a good chance your insurance won't cover the accident so you'll get stuck with paying the other guys bill. That's likely going to result in a civil lawsuit. Trust me AS is not an excuse for breaking laws. I've got a few convictions (all misdemeanors) under my belt. I've been charged with a felony that got dropped down to a misdemeanor. Tried the whole AS thing. Got the same exact penalty as the other people involved in the case. They've put people with AS in jail before. There was a kid I went to high school with who had bipolar disorder, severe anger management issues, and a huge host of other psychological issues. He got in trouble for rape they tried having is dismissed due to his issues. Didn't work out and the kid has been in jail for the last 4 years. If you have a meltdown in front of the cops they will arrest and restrain you for your own and their own safety. And since they don't know of your condition you'll be charged with disorderly conduct, and possibly assault on an officer, and resiting arrest.

For me, I had the opposite reaction to a car accident. I crashed my car and had ZERO emotional response whatsoever. Probably the adrenaline. I crashed, just was like "Oh, I crashed, huh, better call my mom to pick me up and the police." And that was that. The rest of my family was way more angry and stressed that I crashed on the first day, and then the "I'm the worst person in the world..." feeling set in after about 3 days. But, initially I had a completely emotionless response to the crash. It's weird, I can freak out over "tiny" things, and then be totally cool and calm and collected during extremely bad things. It depends on your emotional responses, I guess. Also for me, I didn't start driving until 17, didn't get my license until almost 19, and had that crash at almost 20.

So, wait on it a bit, also, oddly, one crash will sorta...not desensitize you to crashes, but will put them into perspective I guess? I'd spun out a few times before that and had minor close calls so I knew what it was like to have an emergency driving situation happen.

Anyway, yeah, as other posters have said, the legal ramifications for running away from the scene of an accident are extremely bad. So if you would run away from an accident, then yeah, don't drive. It is that simple, you MUST stay at the scene and call the police. There's no other option.

If you wanna drive, I'd say wait, get the learners permit now if you want, and if you want, get a feel for driving, but I'd wait for your license until you're 18-20 and have matured. So if you get the permit, you can go out with your mom or dad driving periodically, and, say, just drive them to the grocery store or something and get a good feel for driving and cars, and get a lot of hours in so you can adapt to driving, but so that if you mess up, your parents are there to take the wheel or calm you down or whatever. Just take it slow. I wouldn't say you can NEVER drive, but it's gonna take a bit of maturity and "toughening" on your part. Driving is about the most dangerous activity you can do. About 3-4 times more people (depends on the year you're looking at) die from traffic accidents than homicide, so you have to treat it with ample respect.

Lastly, you might need medication to drive. For me, I need some caffeine or some kind of stimulant in me to drive and feel safe while driving, to speed my reaction times up and whatnot. I have NVLD, which makes spatial processing hard. So, might be something you wanna look into. I probably wouldn't use caffeine or any kind of stimulant, but I need it to drive.

I've been in 5 accidents.

In the 4 I walked away from, my initial response was to make sure I was ok then call the police and try to control the scene until they arrived. Make sure everyone was ok.

I know I wouldn't be a good driver. I am 29 and still don't drive. I shut down if there is too much activity going on around me. My reaction time is too long to be useful. My coordination is bad. Sometimes so bad I can't put food on my plate without half of it going on the floor and even feeding myself (depending on how much stress I am experiencing) sometimes it gets so bad I get more ON me than in my mouth. I also hallucinate when my parents are driving and if I happened to be behind the wheel then I would avoid them (and possibly cause an accident). The list goes on. I also wouldn't know what to do in an emergency situation. I would wait a little longer before you drive. While being a passenger I have been in a couple of accidents. Actually one of them was this year! No one got hurt or damaged in that one though. Another one I have been in I got severe whiplash and both cars got damaged. I am afraid to drive. The sad thing is I am also afraid of using public transportation myself because of past things that happened in the school bus. I think they would make fun of me, rob me, or even stab me (in the school bus I was made fun of every single day, they would throw things at me, and other bullying techniques). The problem is that I don't trust being with strangers. People get robbed and stabbed all the time in a bus. I wouldn't even want to walk by myself in a city. I know I am NOT in a city now, actually the middle of nowhere but when dad retires we are thinking of going to Orlando. We don't know for sure yet. I am terrified of when the parents die because I would end up on the streets. My brother for sure since his company is a complete failure. You can't get more complete than my brother's company. He has $0 income. He got denied for SSI and everything else. Realism is coming. I hate being a realist. I want to be more like my brother, a complete optimist.