16 and licensed to kill

While I’m on the subject of driving and responsibility ….

It seems as though twice a month or so I hear another report about a teenage driver killing themselves and/or their friends with a car. Yet we still seem inclined to hand these children driver's licenses before they are really ready to accept the responsibility that comes with driving a metal killing machine.

In fact we seem all too eager to give them their license and get them on the road. Parents not only eagerly take their kids to the testing station to get their license but often buy them cars as well. The state, too, helps in this by allowing the test to be taken repeatedly until it is passed. Maybe it’s just me but the tests (both written and practical driving tests) are not THAT hard … perhaps if you can’t pass the test after, say, 3 attempts maybe you don’t need to be driving ….. Allow them take the test again after 12 months have passed, maybe they’ll have learned enough responsibility to at least study the applicable traffic laws. If they still can’t pass it in 3 tries … well … they can try again when they’re 21.

(Keep in mind that I think the limit on the number of times you can take the test should apply regardless of age … if you too dumb to pass the test after 3 attempts, I don’t want you on the road.)

Driving is NOT a right … it is a privilege … and a luxury. Specifically it is an ADULT privilege with ADULT responsibilities. Cars can kill people … as many of these teens discover by making a mistake that they’ll never have the opportunity to make again, and others discover by killing their friends or family … or someone else’s family.

This brings me to a proposed law (by Neal Boortz (http//boortz.com)) here in Georgia that I support. I don’t have the exact wording of the law in front of me, but in essence it is simply put as: Any person under the age of 18 that is exercising the adult privilege of driving and commits a crime will be held accountable and tried as an adult.

In other words … if you make the choice that you are adult enough to drive, then you are adult enough to face the consequences of your actions behind the wheel in the adult courts. Your actions in these cases will go on your permanent adult record, and, if applicable, you will be sentenced to adult jail time in adult prisons.

Some would argue that a 16 year old is not mature enough to make that kind of decision or face that severe a punishment … in return I would argue that if that is the case then a 16 year old is not mature enough to operate a vehicle on public roads that is capable of killing themselves or others.

I know of a case here in Georgia, and another in Florida, and I’m sure there are others, where this law should have been in effect. In the Georgia case, a 16 year old female driver who was disobeying her parents realized that she was late getting home. She jumped in her SUV and, while speeding through a residential neighborhood, called her mother on her cell phone. In the midst of all this she lost control of the SUV and went off the road hitting a mother out walking with her 5 year old child. Stopping the SUV she looked out the driver’s window and raced off.

Now, never mind the fact that she was disobeying her parents and was somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be … She was breaking the law, both in speeding and, after the accident, by leaving the scene (making it a hit and run). She was tried as a juvenile and given community service … The 5 year old is dead, the mother has a permanent disability.

I’m sorry … maybe I’m too harsh … but she ended the life of one person, and permanently disabled another, at the LEAST I don’t think she should EVER be allowed to put herself behind the wheel of another vehicle and drive it, period. I certainly don’t think that she should have gotten off with a juvenile record (which was wiped clean on her 18th birthday) and community service.

If we are not going to hold under age drivers responsible as adults for breaking the law while exercising an adult privilege, then we should hold the adults responsible for the actions of the under age drivers under their responsibility. Oh, but we can’t have that! They’d have to actually keep tabs on their child’s behavior, location, and judgment … Wait, that’s contrary to why they bought the kid a car and got them a driver’s license ….

But that’s another rant….