Car insurance...

This is a follow up on a previous post of mine about driving tests.
Lets say you manage to get your licence, there's still a massive obstacle in your way before being able to drive. Car ( auto) insurance costs so much these days, especially for younger drivers (and males have it worse again). How are people expected to get good at driving if they can't practice it because they cant afford the massive cost to drive a car when they get their licence, yes you should be able to drove perfectly after your test but as we all know this is not true.
Even if you are driving a small 1 litre engine car, and are on your parents insurance it will still cost 3000 minimum!

At this rate between the new tests and the auto insurance (and taxes too)  i dont see how people can afford to start driving until they have a full time job after college.


I'd like to know is auto insurance in other countries as dear?
like America, Australia Germany etc.
and also does it differ much between each state?

Points Going up!!

The results are out from the leaving certificate and many people are very disappointed with it, not because they didn't get the points they aimed for but because the points required shot up as much as 80 points for some courses. This left a lot of people (who had allowed for the points to go up a little and so got 30-40 points more then they thought they needed) short on what they needed for their first choice of course, some didn't even get any of their choices leaving them stranded without a college to go to.
On average the points required by courses went up by 25% which is a lot, if the course you wanted to do needed 400 points it now needs 500. Which out of a max score of 600 points is a lot and requires about 15 points extra on each subject's result thats a grade higher on each exam!!
Points are expected to go up as much as 20% for this years leaving certificate, which means a lot more study for students.

That damn new driving test!

As a lot of people are aware, in Ireland you can do your theory driving test when you are 17 and all you have to do is answer 40 questions and get 35 right from a,b,c,d, questions. This is easy enough, however since the start of september it has been changed, there is now 80 questions out of which you need to get 70 right.
There are hundreds of possible questions they could ask you so having to know this many is very tough. As well as the theory test being changed, from the new year you are now required to have a mandatory 12 lessons from a driving instructor, which is very expensive and theres a huge waiting list for places. The government say its in the interest of safety, and maybe so but more likely in my opinion it's to encourage people to use public transport rather than cars which pollute the environment. I am all for this however i am stuck in the middle at the moment :(