l'il kiddies with Vehicles of Mass Destruction

[Leland]

**moving way out from the cities but still trying to squeeze their commutes into twenty minutes.

Agreed. My commute takes twenty minutes -- if I walk. I made sure to find a place within walking distance, and I'm about a mile and a half away. Driving, it takes about 7 minutes, and that's if the traffic is bad.

Better training, better role models, better general behavior, and stiffer penalties should apply to everyone on the roads. Nobody is exempt from stupidity. The days of getting a renewed driver's license in the mail need to end. Never mind whether such a recipient is competent or not, but that act lets everyone else know that a license is pretty much a joke. Might as well send in eight cereal box tops for a new one.

[TMurphy]

New Jersey has imposed interesting restrictions on Drivers under 18 (that is, at 17, because that's the driving age here.) 17 year old drivers are not allowed to drive at night (except in cases of emergency), and are not allowed to drive with more than one or two non-family members in the car. There are more specifics out there, but I don't have time to find them right now.

Myself? Got my license at 17. Didn't use it, because I didn't have a car, couldn't afford one, and didn't really need it. Now, I'm 21, and have recently purchased a car (for only $600, Joe), and have been driving a lot more (with my father, just to get more experience.) I feel much more confident and capable of safe driving now than I did at 17. I would have been a huge danger on the road then; I was too nervous all the time. Now I feel in control, and the added 4 years of life experience has made all the difference for me.

[TMurphy]

I've been thinking about this thread a little, and I'm reminded of something my father (a truck driver, like Wayne) always said. He has frequently said that people do their best driving when they first get their license. The reason for this, according to him, is that new drivers are not totally comfortable behind the wheel, and are typically very cautious. That is, until they get more comfortable. Once people get too comfortable behind the wheel, that is when they become dangerous. Things become automatic, you stop thinking, stop being as readily alert. Add to the mix not being very experienced, and that is when disaster happens.

I posted earlier about the restrictions in NJ...here is more info, from this site: http://www.nj.gov/mvc/cit_permits/d_gdl ... ionalchart

Provisional Non-photo Driver License – Special Conditions



May not drive from 12:01 a.m. to 5 a.m. except with a written waiver from employer or religious authority. Note: hour restrictions do not apply if provisional licensee is 21 or older.



Passengers limited to one person, plus any person sharing the same residence, unless the provisional licensee or a passenger is 21 or over.



Supervising driver not required.



Everyone in the vehicle must wear safety belts.



$100 fine for violations of any of the other conditions of provisional license.




IMPORTANT NOTE: All holders of a Provisional Driver License whose provisional licensing period is NOT extended by MVC beyond the standard 12 months MUST upgrade to a Basic Driver License after the end of those 12 months.


Motorists who are eligible for but who do NOT upgrade to a Basic Driver License at the end of those 12 months will remain subject to MVC’s Provisional Driver License regulations and could be cited by law enforcement for violating Provisional Driver License regulations.

Not quite strict enough, but a step in the right direction, I think.

Age and maturity are certainly a factor, and a 17 year old who is not mature enough and ready to handle driving should not do so (as was my case). A larger factor, though, is experience, experience is the only way to get better. Inexperienced drivers of any age can be a problem, if they don't take the responsibility seriously enough.

[TMurphy]

Better get an amendment for that, Joe, otherwise your whole idea doesn't fly, because of this:

Amendment XXVI


Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States, who are 18 years of age or older, to vote, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of age.

Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

I, personally, have always felt it foolish for a person to be legally able to do everything but drink alchohol at 18. Do voting, serving in the military, and smoking require less responsibility than drinking alchohol??? I don't think so. My personal inclination would be to lower the drinking age before raising anything else, but, that's just me.

[Doug@GT]

- 21 would be the voting age. (sorry Democrats and MTV )

Pfft.

Like TMurphy said, that'll take a new Constitutional Amendment. Ain't gonna happen.

[Doug@GT]

the human psyche in our post-modern culture is encouraged to remain child-like until around age 21.

But the 35% that have already grown up between 18 and 21 are the ones who vote. The immature in that age range take care of your rule for you: they don't vote. Your rule would only affect those of us who actually care.

[funkcicle]

I agree with Joe for the most part. I'm young, 23, and have never been in an accident. I credit this to my parents' strict caution and common sense.

I got my learners' permit when I was 16, when I turned 17 I was only allowed to renew it. For those 2 years I drove a lot, but only with my parents in the car. When I turned 18(still in high school, I'm a January baby) I was required to take drivers ed and then got my license.

While in high school I did not have my own car.. my parents loaned me their's whenever I needed it, which was rarely, or on the rare ocaission that they'd send me on errands. I'm in full agreement with Joe that there are virtually no circumstances under which somebody under the age of 18 needs a car.

When I graduated from high school my parents paid for two thirds of my first car as a graduation gift, a $1500 car that lasted me over 3 years and 30,000 miles with less than $300 in maintenance on it(I was also taught how to TAKE CARE of my vehicle). And there was an additional stipulation--if I wanted to be on my parents' insurance policy(saving hundreds of dollars a year vs. getting insurance on my own), I wasn't allowed to have a radio in my car.

I'm the only person in my peer group to never have been in an accident or gotten a speeding ticket. I credit this to the fact that I don't take driving for granted. It's a priviledge that I worked hard to earn, and a responsibility that took years of training to prepare for.

I plan on taking the exact same approach with my kids.

[Leland]

In general, the difficulty with most teen drivers is that they don't have the opportunity to spend enough time behind the wheel to become comfortable/proficient with the relatively complex sets of mechanical actions that need to become second nature if a driver is to be competent.

So many driver's ed courses are classroom instruction, and they don't help at all with management of vehicle behavior. That's very unfortunate.

I keep thinking that the only accidents that can't be prevented are hitting a deer or when a large branch falls onto the road (both are pretty rare, aren't they?). A punctured tire can cause an accident depending on the situation. Everything else, I'm convinced, is preventable in one way or another. "I lost control" really should be stated as, "I was driving like a freakin' moron."

[cjk]

A car needs to be referred to as a "3000 pound killing machine" rather than just "the car" or "transportation".


Furthermore, I'm amazed at the loss of perspective of pedestrians who don't look both ways and walk right out into the path of my "3000 pound killing machine" even in parking lots. Try screaming "pedestrians have the right of way" on the way to the morgue.

Maybe driver's ed training should include a field trip to the morgue.


Christian

[Leland]

Furthermore, I'm amazed at the loss of perspective of pedestrians who don't look both ways and walk right out into the path of my "3000 pound killing machine" even in parking lots. Try screaming "pedestrians have the right of way" on the way to the morgue.

I've known people who would practically just walk into traffic and expect to stay safe because they had the legal right of way. Somehow, they thought I was a jerk for telling them that not only do they create a hazard by getting in the way of moving traffic, but also that the drivers could easily be paying absolutely no attention to what they're about to hit.

Side note: People wonder why I look both ways when I'm crossing a one-way street (whether on foot or in a car). I say that if someone is coming the wrong way, then they really don't know what they're doing, so I'd better be extra careful.

[CJ Krause]

***

[Leland]

You are obviously in the other 5%, as you realize this and take the necessary steps for safety.

Thanks -- I try, anyway. I also would rather take my risks on the autocross course where the worst that would probably happen is that I'd kill a traffic cone (or ten!).

[ThomasDodd]

Been there, done that. A lot of folks couldn't handle it, although it's pretty tame compared to the accident scene. I get to see the results of car crashes all the time in my job. Not pretty, but for me it's just another day at the office. Too bad they can't get the DE classes out to some major accident scenes.

Maybe not DE class, but a provision of the liscense is 10-20hr community service at crash sites. That is something that would be good for all. Our soiciety is to far removed for the realities of life and death. How many people (percentage of the population) have any idea how the steak in the grocery store ended up there? Or what a dead body looks like, before a mortician dressed it up?

Perhaps an indoctrination to reality would straighten most of them out.

[Rick Denney]

...I got his car number.
Called the police station...

Hint: DON'T DO THIS!

Policing the police ain't your job. If you want to do that, grow up, become a pillar of the community, get elected to City Council, and have at it. Or get a degree in criminology and work your way up to being their boss.

When I managed the traffic signals in Austin, I annoyed a cop who was being lazy about the duties for which we'd hired him (and yes, we were paying his overtime out of our department budget). It was associated with the making of the movie Nadine, in case you want a time and place. The result was that I had cops following me all over the place for a long time.

Rick "showing a lot of scars this week" Denney

[Rick Denney]

...We already infantilize our youth enough as it is - at some point we have to let them grow up and make their own mistakes...

I liked your post except for this portion. We "let" kids grow up? Would they ever grow up if we took so passive a role? Judging from a quick review of my generation (let alone the generations that are younger), it would appear that too many of our parents "allowed" us to grow up, with the result that not very many actually made it to adulthood. I know a lot of mid-40s teenagers, sad to say.

It seems to me that we push our kids into growing up, by steadily increasing their responsibilities and restricting their freedoms if they don't live up to those responsibilities. They have to show the responsibility before they get the freedom.

My parents raised me well and provided a good example, but when it came to the car, they should have taken driving privileges away from me on the first ticket. They didn't, and I'm lucky to have survived that portion of my growing up. I see the kids around here driving Daddy's pickup at 70 mph down a country road designed for horse and carriage and posted with a speed limit of 45. They get seen, and word gets back. Daddy says, "Don't do that, boy" but does not take away the privilege and not-so-secretly beams with pride that his kid has a fast truck.

Rental-car companies won't, repeat won't rent a car to anyone under 25. Considering who they do rent to, I'm amazed that parents are freer with their property.

Perhaps the way to push a kid into growing up would be to let him drive when it is his car he is driving--his car that he bought and that he insures with his money; money that he earned doing actual work. (Or "her"--the teenage girls are often worse than the boys.)

You can't write the law that way, hence my previous post. But if it were MY kids, that's the direction I'd want to go.

Rick "who, as should be obvious by now, doesn't have kids" Denney

[Lew]

...We already infantilize our youth enough as it is - at some point we have to let them grow up and make their own mistakes...

I liked your post except for this portion. We "let" kids grow up? Would they ever grow up if we took so passive a role? Judging from a quick review of my generation (let alone the generations that are younger), it would appear that too many of our parents "allowed" us to grow up, with the result that not very many actually made it to adulthood. I know a lot of mid-40s teenagers, sad to say.

It seems to me that we push our kids into growing up, by steadily increasing their responsibilities and restricting their freedoms if they don't live up to those responsibilities. They have to show the responsibility before they get the freedom.

Rick "who, as should be obvious by now, doesn't have kids" Denney

As a parent of 2 nearly grown up legal adults, the reality is there is only so much you can do as a parent to encourage your children to become responsible. In the end, they grow up, or not, in spite of what we do, not necessarily because of it. You can use the punish/reward cycle to encourage responsible behavior, but how children react to this in many ways depends on what they bring to the table.

I have 2 very different children, in spite of fair/equivalent treatment. One worked 2 jobs while attending an ivy league school and graduated with honors in 3 years. The other is at a community college taking the minimal full time load, and only working to the extent necessary to pay the bills that we refuse to pay. Both were given the same guidelines, treatment, rules, limitations, but what they learned from the experience was processed very differently. The nature vs. nuture argument has not been answered, but no matter what, it is clear to me that nature has a clear role in the end result.

[Rick Denney]

As a parent of 2 nearly grown up legal adults, the reality is there is only so much you can do as a parent to encourage your children to become responsible. In the end, they grow up, or not, in spite of what we do, not necessarily because of it. You can use the punish/reward cycle to encourage responsible behavior, but how children react to this in many ways depends on what they bring to the table...

Well said, and absolutely no disagreement from me.

You mentioned your underachieving #2 child. Even though he is not accomplishing as much as your other child, he is still living with his own choices. Thus, he will learn what that takes, and make further choices based on that. Even that may not work--people often choose foolishly even when they know better.

The difference is that there are many kids out there whose power to choose has never been developed or tested. They have never been left to face the consquences of their own choices, commensurate with the level of freedom they have been granted at the time. The kid who wrecks the car bought by Daddy is not facing his own consequences. The kid whose Dad has to pay $8000 a year in insurance because of three speeding tickets is not facing his own consequences. These kids too often become the kid who lives at home at age 28 because it's easier than providing for himself or the kid who cheats on his wife, spawn illegitimate children, and then expects his paramours to be raise them (or who pressures them into having an abortion). I'll bet you won't have to face many of those problems, though your kid might, depending on his choices.

Remember, I said teenagers have to be pushed into growing up, which may mean pushing them out of the house when it's time for them to provide for themselves. It sounds as though you've done just that.

Driving a car is often the first time a kid really has the freedome to rebel, and a previously well-behaved kid might start to lose it at that point. It's just too tempting--you can go faster just but exerting a little more foot pressure. The parents have to pull hard on the leash if that happens.

Rick "who knows too many mid-40's teenagers who were never pushed into paying their own consequences" Denney

[ThomasDodd]

I can't say more as one of them is a regular here and I don't want to give him any ammunition to torment his brother! :lol:

Off topic, but I'm pleased to see you follow both their activities enough to even read this BBS, let alone contribut to it. And to get in to the off topic discussion worthy of more praise than I can give.

Rest assued you efforts will be rewarded.

Also know, that those other parents you mentioned wouldn't be following these discussions.

[FarahShazam]

Okay, I'm a butthead...

However, I drove at 16, had my license and a huge big butt Ford Falcon Club wagon (ie van). I have, to this day, NEVER been in a wreck.

I'm scared to type this because I don't want fate to come knocking.

I also had lots and lots of driving lessons--took drivers ed, and had to have extra classes to help me along.

Sean, did NOT take drivers ed, and has totaled one car that I know of (4 years ago).

Maybe it has nothing to do with the age of the driver... Maybe it has to do with individual maturity and nurture.

(ducking out of the way of veggies flying at my head)

[tubatooter1940]

I got my license at 16 and was lucky.
My son got his at 16 and totaled two cars and his back.
my daughter got her license at 18,had two wrecks due only to her inexperience.At age 22 minus two days a truck ran her down and
killed her.
The huge increase in traffic in my small town makes it so risky for
a new driver to survive.I have only one grandson and I plan to lobby
for a huge delay in his application for a driving license.
Dennis