New Young Driver Regulations and Penalties
Paul Ritchie posted in News on April 1st, 2007
The story that is closest to my heart which is concerned with the safety of younger drivers - keeping them alive, basically - has come to its conclusion with the passing through the legislature of tough new regulations for junior operators and greatly increased penalties for wayward young drivers.
Speeding tickets
(up from $50 fine)
Suspend license 90 days.
$50 fine.
Completion of State Courts Against Road Rage program.
Completion of an attitudinal retraining course.
$500 reinstatement fee.
Escalating fines for violations of more than 10 miles per hour:
— $10 for each mile per hour over the limit.
— $50 surcharge.
I have no idea what a $50 surcharge is supposed to be. An extra slug on the ticket for getting caught speeding while the police are doing overtime or on weekend penalty rates? Oh well. The idea is not to speed.
And to obtain a junior operator’s permit…
Training requirements
Beginning Sept. 1, drivers with a learner’s permit must:
Spend at least 40 hours driving with a parent or adult (up from 12 hours).
Spend 12 hours behind the wheel in driver education classes (up from 6 hours).
40 hours is an improvement on 12 to be sure, but I would have been happier to see something really definite like 100 hours. Driving, after all, is all about habits. We take the same routes to the same destinations, we listen to the same cds or radio station, park in the same places and we all drive according to with what we feel comfortable.
100 hours with a parent is ample time to have good habits inculcated into young drivers - unless the parents have their own dreadful habits.
12 hours behind the wheel in driver education classes is still pretty slack, but that’s what was around when I went for my license and I’m one of those nauseatingly safe drivers. Boring. I don’t run red lights, I do actually stop at stop signs and slow down in feeder streets. I don’t drive 5 mph slower in the fast lane though - that’s asking for trouble and is driving a different kind of dangerously.
Young drivers might consider me an old fashioned, boring, tyrannical old road Nazi and that may well be true. But as long as they still hate my guts when they’re 21, 22, 23… and I read fewer news stories of tragedies with which I find it difficult to cope - then it’s all good. Hate me well. Hate me long. Hate me with all your friends. Hate me when you’re teaching your own kids how to drive. Hate me at parties. Hate me at raves. Hate me at the football. Hate me on your way home from work. Hate me until I’m 80 and can’t even register it any more. The point is, you have to live in order to hate me at all. Or you can ignore me until I’m 80, it’s all the same to me. The point is, you’re alive and that is all that matters.