For parents: helping your teen get a California license

What your signature means

When you sign your teen's application, you accept financial responsibility for them: if they cause a collision, you pay for the damage. If you share custody, both parents sign. You can cancel your teen's license at any time, for any reason, with a DMV form.

Your part in the practice

• The permit is only valid once your teen has started training with a driving instructor, who signs it.
• Your teen may practice only with you, a guardian, a licensed driver 25 or older, or an instructor, sitting where they can take control.
• California requires 50 hours of supervised practice, 10 of them at night, before the drive test. You certify the hours by signing the permit. The DMV offers a Supervised Driving Log and a Parent-Teen Driving Contract to keep track and set your own family rules.
• Start in a large, empty parking lot (turns, backing up, first parallel parking), then quiet residential streets (parallel parking, U-turns on a wide street), then busy traffic, freeways, hills, rain and night driving. Night driving comes last, once daytime skills are solid.

Is your teen ready? Before the drive test, take a long ride together and check that you have covered:

• heavy city traffic, one-way streets, center left turn lanes and freeway entries and exits;

• country roads, gravel, hills, bad weather and night driving;

• what to do after drinking, using drugs or when too tired to drive;

• what to do in an emergency or after a collision.

The 6-month wait with the permit applies even if your teen is ready earlier.

On test day

Your teen may not drive to the DMV alone. They need a licensed driver 25 or older, the permit signed by the instructor and by you, and a registered, insured vehicle they know well.

The first year

• No driving between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m., and no passengers under 20 unless you, another guardian, a licensed driver 25 or older or a driving instructor rides along. Exceptions need a signed note (doctor, school, employer, or you for a family need).
• Until 18, not only the first year: no phone use while driving, hands-free included, except to call for emergency help or on private property.
• Two at-fault collisions or tickets in a year: 30 days driving only with an adult 25 or older. Three: a 6-month suspension and a year of probation. Turning 18 does not end them.