Another day, another hmm.
Paul Ritchie posted in News on March 29th, 2006
First up, Orien Greene arrested and charged, driving 90 mph in a suburban Boston street.
After the headlines of the last two days, I just have not the words. None I care to repeat here anyway.
Stunts like that and cupidity? Bin ‘em.
Reading over the most recent entry to this blog, it seems I may have given the impression of a major left wing bent with an almost surreal tinge of green about it. It ain’t so. I’m a token gesture greenie. I reuse plastic bags by taking the ones I already have when I go shopping, I turn lights off when I don’t need them immediately and I’ll walk, rather than drive to the shops.
I don’t get worked up over pandas or glaciers or obscure beetles that live under rocks in far flung corners of Patagonia. I don’t get excited when some species makes a comeback and I don’t coo and gaa over pictures of small furry creatures. To me, if it’s smaller than a sequoia, it’s a weed and if it’s smaller than a leopard, it’s an insect. Fish don’t exist.
I get moved by mankind. I love it when someone achieves something or creates something. Right now, I wish we had ethanol cars yesterday. I mean lots of them. I really want ethanol cars on the road and nobody is paying me diddly squat to say so. I so badly want ethanol cars on the road, you have no idea. I want them so badly because every time I go hunting for information on new technology to do with the automotive industry, I get stuck in the eye with that P word.
Ethanol supremacy means P extinction and that’ll be a date to celebrate. P is a gas/electricity hybrid. Not an ethanol or ethanol/gas hybrid.
I have nothing against Toyota per se, let’s be clear on this. The MR2 is a nifty little beast and Landcruisers, especially those dirty big khaki things they drive around in African Safari films, they’re brilliant. I really like them because they run on diesel and if you think I’m enthusiastic about ethanol and hydrogen, I’m ecstatic about diesel developments. Those 5 cars that outdid the Prius in Germany last week were all diesel/electric hybrids.
Fancy having the temerity to test cars on the open road instead of the tv studio type thing! How was the poor Prius supposed to compete with *ahem* reality.
Anyway, following on from Sunday’s bit about the driving age, I’ve emailed half of Massachusetts with my opinion on that one, from the Governor’s office to the Boston Globe and anyone else I could find. The replies and subsequent discussions which went to and fro centered around two issues - driver education and experience versus the maturity of young hopefuls hoping to pilot their very own missiles.
Knowing the disinclination of parents to spend one minute more with their kids than the law requires is the deciding factor for me. I’ve had kids asking me to drive with them so they could get their hours up because their parents wouldn’t. Bear in mind, these are kids I’ve known most of their lives, so it’s not like I’m a stranger to them. Do I let them drive my car? Absolutely.
It staggers me the parents are more worried about what their kids might do to my car than anything else. They trust me more than they trust their own kids. What the hell is up with that?
So for all those with whom I’ve discussed this issue who’ve made clickage upon links I’ve left and now find yourselves here, when you can tell me parents are bursting at the seems to sit quietly in the passengers’ seats of their own cars while their kids gain that all important life saving experience, then I’ll back you up if you want to lower the age to 15. I agree 100% the main issue is driver education and experience for our kids. I couldn’t agree more. But the reality is too many of them can’t get it and unless that experience can be guaranteed, I won’t be happy knowing 16 year olds are unleashed and killing themselves. Somehow, I think parents can’t accept the fact their little darlings are that old already. Nearly 18 is almost an adult, 16 is not even half way through puberty.
It didn’t kill me waiting until I was 21 to get my license and that was by choice, not by law. I won’t say I was more mature than any of the younger drivers who got theirs the first day they were able, one look around my other blogs will confirm that. But I’d been in accidents when my friends were driving and I was well cured of the need to speed or act like Batman by the time I decided I did need my license.
The difference between a safe trip home and a fatal accident is less than half a second.
Leave a Response