Quote Originally Posted by birdgirl73
You're putting yourself and your son in a mighty dangerous situation there, Sauce. I live in Texas, too, and am the parent of a son who's now 20, so we've been dealing with car and insurance issues for four years.

You should definitely do whatever it takes to get your boy a hardship license. The insurance won't cover him or the car if there's an accident until he's a licensed driver and he's specifically added to the insurance policy. If there were an accident and your son or someone else were badly injured, you would be held financially responsible for that accident and would be a sitting duck for a lawsuit filed by the injured party or his insurer. If the medical or property damages that person suffered as a result of that accident ended up being covered by his own insurer because they were caused by an uninsured teenaged driver, the victim's insurance company would come after you in an instant to re-coup the money they had to shell out. Also, if police found out you were letting your son drive without a license or insurance, they're fairly likely to alert Child Protective Services to investigate whether other instances of parental neglect might be occurring in your household. It's just not worth the chance if you weight the risk against the benefit of his driving, and no matter how good a driver he is, accidents can and do happen. With teenaged boys, they happen with alarming frequency.
while i usually agree, and i didn't notice this post lol...

the person who hit my wife didn't have a permit, much less a liscense.... the insurance company is still paying us...

i still think you should do whatever it takes to get it all completely legal... but like i said, the insurance is paying us, and the driver didn't even have a permit (and around here, dunno about your city, for a permit to even be legal ontop of that, there has to be a liscensed driver with 1+ year experience in the front passanger seat)