The American Spectator

The Nation's Pulse

Is 16 Too Young to Drive?

By Eric Peters on 9.16.08 @ 12:07AM

(Page 2 of 2)

We don't really show kids how to drive -- especially how to handle emergency, such as a slide on black ice. Instead, we chant cant at them that's obvious nonsense, such as "speed kills" -- the driving equivalent of Just Say No at anti-drug sessions. Kids are smart enough to see through this, but immature enough to then regard everything they're taught by adults as nonsense.

This is dangerous.

Far better to really teach them -- and to be honest with them.

I'd be ready to lay serious cash on the table to bet Lund that if you took an average 14 or 15 year old and had him or her trained by an expert instructor and properly supervised for a year or two before a provisional license was granted -- after which the kid would still be monitored and quickly reined in at the first sign of reckless or incompetent behavior -- the whole "teenage driver" thing would just disappear.

Problem is, there's no money in that. Finding solutions to problems is not what IIIS wants. It wants crusades that never end. Just like MADD; just like politicians.

Just like the whole lot of them.

Letter to the Editor

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