Legal driving age vs. maturity
- Thread starter Falcon_LS
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Originally Posted By: Falcon_LS
I suppose a lot of it has to do with "easy come, easy go". If you pay for something out of your own sweat and hard effort, you will not misuse it. But if its handed to you on a golden plate, which is usually the case with parents, then you could care less...which is what is happening here. A Denali goes for something like $40,000, and if that kid earned that money to pay for that truck, I don't think he would be driving it that way. . . .
Dear Lawd, if somebody had handed my 16-year-old self any kind of half-decent car, a beater, as long as it ran --!
I'd have been so glad to ditch riding buses and cadging lifts from weary friends that I'd have treated the beater like a brand-new Mercedes bought from my paper route money. (Well, I never had a paper route, but you get the idea.) Waiting for buses in the heat and cold would have been my sweat and hard work. I'd have considered I earned that car!
I suppose a lot of it has to do with "easy come, easy go". If you pay for something out of your own sweat and hard effort, you will not misuse it. But if its handed to you on a golden plate, which is usually the case with parents, then you could care less...which is what is happening here. A Denali goes for something like $40,000, and if that kid earned that money to pay for that truck, I don't think he would be driving it that way. . . .
Dear Lawd, if somebody had handed my 16-year-old self any kind of half-decent car, a beater, as long as it ran --!
I'd have been so glad to ditch riding buses and cadging lifts from weary friends that I'd have treated the beater like a brand-new Mercedes bought from my paper route money. (Well, I never had a paper route, but you get the idea.) Waiting for buses in the heat and cold would have been my sweat and hard work. I'd have considered I earned that car!
Originally Posted By: mechtech2
We don't really train or test people thoroughly in the USA for driver's licenses.
We only go through the motions.
We need to instill FEAR. We need to instill real RESPONSIBILITY.
Tens of thousands of dollars ,life, death, and maiming, [like living in a wheelchair for the rest of your life] should be hammered into kids who are disassociated from reality with video games and movies.
Yea, good luck.
Most male teenagers have no fear. You can show them all the videos and wrecked cars and mangled bodies all you want and it will be forgotten he next day. Access to cell phones and loud music doesn't help either.
As far as responsibility, how many teenagers will willingly use a condom, even when they know the consequences?
I don't have the answers.
We don't really train or test people thoroughly in the USA for driver's licenses.
We only go through the motions.
We need to instill FEAR. We need to instill real RESPONSIBILITY.
Tens of thousands of dollars ,life, death, and maiming, [like living in a wheelchair for the rest of your life] should be hammered into kids who are disassociated from reality with video games and movies.
Yea, good luck.
Most male teenagers have no fear. You can show them all the videos and wrecked cars and mangled bodies all you want and it will be forgotten he next day. Access to cell phones and loud music doesn't help either.
As far as responsibility, how many teenagers will willingly use a condom, even when they know the consequences?
I don't have the answers.
I got my license right at 16, but I had been commuting for a while on the back roads with my dirtbike. I did some dumb stuff with the cars but I knew when to draw the line from my dirtbike experience, you get a feeling for when you are getting to close to out of control out on the mx track, and on the bike going over the "limit" was always rewarded with a painful slide in the dirt or worse. Its a bad feeling just before and during a crash and I never wanted to feel that way in a car...
Also my parents made it very clear that if I got in a stupid accident I wouldn't be driving their cars anytime soon.
I think most kids like the one in the Denali need to be taught to respect other people and their driving would much safer too. Goofing around on a deserted road is much different than using other cars as slalom cones...
Probably something like an automatic 1 year license suspension for a careless or dangerous driving charge would be an incentive too for those who couldn't care less about other drivers out there.
Also my parents made it very clear that if I got in a stupid accident I wouldn't be driving their cars anytime soon.
I think most kids like the one in the Denali need to be taught to respect other people and their driving would much safer too. Goofing around on a deserted road is much different than using other cars as slalom cones...
Probably something like an automatic 1 year license suspension for a careless or dangerous driving charge would be an incentive too for those who couldn't care less about other drivers out there.
Some kind of video game/taser combo might be a good way to teach driving skills.
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