License To Kill
So you’ve just turned 15, you’re enjoying your birthday, and you have been a teenager for a whole two years. You got some awesome presents for your birthday including that PS3 you wanted and had a wicked party with your friends, and tomorrow it all gets better, tomorrow you are booked in to sit your Learner Drivers License test.
$79 later you’re holding that yellow slip that says you can now drive a car legally if you have your ‘L’ plates displayed and someone with a Full License for two years is sitting in the passenger seat. You can even take passengers in the back of the car.
6 Months Later…
Yes like a movie we have now jumped six months into the future (something has even happened in ‘Lost’ so you know it has been a while) and now $88.20 later you can drive by yourself between 5am and 10pm. This is where I believe things start to go horribly wrong.
Let me start by saying a few people are going to disagree with this including some of my fellow bloggers but I personally believe the driving age is too young. At the age of 15, yes 15, under current New Zealand law you can drive a vehicle on your own anywhere you want. Hell you can even have 30mg of alcohol per/100ml of blood in your body (albeit that’s not much). Does anyone else think this is crazy? And I’m not talking price of fuel crazy, I’m talking G.W Bush crazy.
At the age of 15 you are not legal to; have sex, drink alcohol (without parent guidance), smoke, vote, get married or even leave home. However we are allowed to drive a vehicle up to 100km/h with (very minor) alcohol in our body. That just does not sit right with me. The Government obviously believes we’re not intelligent enough at that age to contribute a worthwhile vote to the elections but we are however responsible and intelligent enough to drive and risk others and our own lives.
Things also get worse from this point, I’m not going to go into too in depth into the matter right now, but suffice to say if you do your ‘Defensive Driving Course’ at the right time you can hold a full license at the age of 16! So at 16 you can drive any time of day without guidance and with as many passengers as your car can hold and it’s perfectly legal. Scared yet?
Personally I strongly believe we need to up the driving age. We are simply too young and sadly quite often too irresponsible at that point in our lives to risk lives of everyone around us. Although I might be completely wrong. What are your thoughts on the driving age in New Zealand and around the world?
Then again I'm sure we're all 100% mature, responsible and reliable at the age of 15... Yeah right.
**Disclaimer - I already own a full license and have for almost two years, so I might be a bit biased.
10 comments:
I agree, wholeheartedly.
I turned 16 in January and only got my Learner's Licence a month ago. Yea, its only a year and a half difference but that's a year and half extra that I'vbe had to grow up a bit. Getting my learners when you are sixteen will meaning most people will get their full by the time they are 18, a legal adult.
I think we should have adults driving around, not kids.
teenagers scare the living sh*t outta me. their/our driving, i guess, contributes. i agree. but it's only getting me to thinking about the shamefull teenagers basking in our community and breathing our air. some of them get told so often by people like us to "get a life!" that they sometimes don't deserve one.
..i think i'm in a bad mood. i'll comment again later..
@ Mona: hahahaha.
Fact Check: I believe there is no law saying that you must be over a certain age to SMOKE so legally you are allowed to smoke at any age, just can't buy cigarettes until you're 18.
I agree that it is too young. You brought up a good point that we, as teens of 15, are not allowed to buy alcohol, have sex or vote, yet they (adults) basically hand us the keys as it is some sort of right of passage to get your learners at 15. It's a deadly combination: NZ's drinking culture and young drivers. But honestly what do they expect?
Good point Novia and you're correct regarding the cigarettes, however the point still stands, perhaps even more so.
The government doesn't allow us to buy cigarettes, but we can however smoke them, yet we're responsible to own and drive a car.
I think not.
Thanks for the feedback guys/gals :)
I, being different, disagree. I have held a restricted license for nearly six months now and have a friend who got his full license umm 2 weeks ago I think. I know that we are both responsible enough to own and drive a car and I KNOW for a fact that many (if not most) other drivers are not as good a driver as me because I don't speed or drive recklessly. I's sure you cannot say the same for all adults. It is unfair to discriminate purely on age basis. It should really be down to maturity, and ability to drive. Maybe it would be a good idea to go through an interview process before licensing? It just seems wrong to me that all teenagers are being tarred with he same brush when adults are just as bad and even worse.
i..
totally agree with zac.
like.
a hundred percent.
sorry kid.
(..kid that's older than me)
but, zac just completely kicked your ass.
adults suck.
but you know what sucks more?
their fucking authority.
still in a bad mood..
comment again later.
..or maybe not.
@zak
Being a teenager I agree that a lot of us can drive safely and responsibly, but too many of us can't at this age and sadly sometimes in society you have to cater for the lowest common denominator.
However you made the statement "I KNOW for a fact that many (if not most) other drivers are not as good a driver as me" which is a big mistake. You just decided that you're a better driver than most people after 6 months of having your restricted. That's just plain crazy, you haven't experienced half of the things that happen on the road, you haven't done a defensive driving course so probably don't know the correct way to react in some situations, and you simply don't have the hours behind the wheel.
And people making statements like that are part of the reason I believe the age is too young, because apparently at this age we are too naïve and make stupid statements like that.
PS: You are however correct that it should be judged on maturity, but that's just too hard to police, anyone can 'act' mature in an interview.
@Ben
It is true that I do not have the experience of other drivers and haven't yet done my defensive driving course (although I don't really need to as my instructor has) but the point still stands. I do think I am a better driver, and it is repeatedly reinforced every time I drive. Many times I have been illegally overtaken while doing exactly the speed limit. I wholeheartedly believe that the vast majority of drivers do not obey the speed restrictions. It gives me great pleasure driving at exactly 50kmph seeing the driver behind me go absolutely nuts because I haven't given them the opening to break the law and attempt to end someone else's life.
And anyway if the age limit was increase to say 18, then people will still be inexperienced an have not completed their defensive driving course at the "mature" age of 19 and 6 months. Starting age is not the issue, perhaps there needs to be more time at the learners stage?
everyone's looking for a perfect world and finding ways to make it happen.
without imperfection (such as bad drivers, war, discrimination, riots and creepy men) then it wouldn't be real.
there wouldn't be history
there wouldn't be dimension
artists wouldn't exist
globalisation
i'm not saying that we should forget making the world better. just stop repeating everything that people like john campbell have already said.
927385682456248 times.
it's disgracefull.
its REALLY mediocre.
stop being fluffy "baa baa" creatures that already live in our country.
we're a new generation.
@ Ben:
"lowest common denominator." don't use it. using it when not talking about maths is just stupid... ms wu said so.
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