If you’re an adult talking about how kids these days have it easy, 99 percent of the time you’ll be wrong. But for those living in Georgia during the coronavirus pandemic, we’ve reached that rare instance where your generational grievances are justified.
On April 23, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed an executive order waiving the requirement for most car road tests while there is a Public State of Emergency, according to the state’s Department of Driver Services. Effectively, that means many teens will be able to obtain driver’s licenses without parallel parking or completing 90-degree back-ins for an instructor.
“Before the virus, over 5,000 Georgia teens a week took the official road test to get their license,” WSB-TV reported. “There’s a backup of 30,000 people who want to take the test, but now, they’ve been given permission to skip it.”
The road test wasn’t available to prospective drivers because of social-distancing requirements, so the executive order thankfully allows teens to continue with at least one rite of passage while many others have been postponed or canceled because of the pandemic. But it also has some worried that newly licensed drivers may not be prepared to go it alone on Georgia roads.
There are precautions in place to weed out the lead-footed, though. According to Georgia DDS, people 16 to 18-years-old need to have had a learners permit for a year with no violations, as well as permission from a parent (including an affidavit confirming 40 hours of driver training).
It’s really the people over 18 you need to worry about. Since they don’t need parental permission, their pathway to a license is even easier.
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