Can your 17 year old daughter drive your rental car?

Answer 1

No she cannot. A rental car service will not allow it unless she is 21.

ANSWER:

Most Car Hire Companies (or Rental Companies) have strict regulations regarding who is permitted to drive a vehicle.

In most cases, all drivers must be licensed and over the age of 25. A rental requires that the credit card used belongs to the driver.

This has come about as a result of numerous cases where parents either deliberately or innocently obfuscated the facts regarding the rental of a vehicle, using their credit card for their son or daughter to rent a car. These acts have resulted in profound consequences.

The individual who hires a vehicle and the individual whose name is on that credit card is the liable party for any and all consequences of that rental. That is extended to acts of damage to the vehicle, property of others, and even injuries to people and animals, including perpetual medical care and liabilities due to death and dismemberment of third parties.

Innocent and well-intentioned parents, who had the highest confidence in their mature son or daughter, going on Spring Break, who handed over their credit card to the young adult to use, with their permission, but ended up in accidents involving write-offs of multiple vehicles, loss of limbs of passengers in other vehicles, and the death of a pedestrian adult and infant, found their insurance was invalid due to exclusionary clauses in the rental agreement, regarding driver validity and misrepresentations, found themselves in the throes of bankruptcy and the loss of their home as a result of contravening rental regulations.

The rules and regulations are well founded and based upon numerous factual (and often sad) case histories. The logic a rental company uses in rental agreements is validated when you visualise the scenario which may be applied to a teenager taking control of an expensive vehicle, without appropriate supervision and guidance.

On a more positive note: Depending on the city you envisage, there are reasonably priced services where your daughter can be transported via a car-service, wherever she chooses, during a set time period. These facilities are sometimes extensions of traditional taxi services. Or they may be promoted as Professional Driver Services. These agreements do not include limousines or flash vehicles, but more traditional, nondescript, sedan vehicles.

Speak with a number of local taxi services to enquire, or even possibly to a car rental company. Again, it does vary between countries and state, city, town, and municipalities.