All the baloney regarding unskilled drivers ( people between the ages of 13 and 19 ) assumes that the reasons for their conduct on the road is a combination of alcohol, inexperience, and risk taking behavior. The solution? Keep them off the roads at night (where their eyesight is a million times more accurate than their parents) and penalize them with loopy hours allowed on the road and curfews that make little sense.

I grew up in Minnesota. We got our licenses to drive when we 14. Farm kids needed to help their parents pilot 9 foot high John Deere 3 wheelers from field to field. Minnesota kids spent most of the winter freezing to death with crummy heaters and barely enough viewing room out the fogged windshield of their 2^nd hand cars. In storms that would shut New York City down until the spring thaw, Minnesota kids drove through drifts and slid sideways all the while developing the skills of accomplished dirt track racers.

If you want to protect your children and get them home safely, send them to a competitive driving and race school such as The Skip Barber franchises located throughout the nation. Spend the money. The same money you’d spend to keep your child alive should they need the care. When I attended, the fee was $2,500. A pittance for parents who want their child to know how to drive instead of parallel park as these worthless high school driver’s education courses teach them .

Rules don’t work. They never do. Skill trumps them all. Give the gift of skill to your children and they’ll reap the rewards for the rest of their lives. Threshold braking, trail braking, and getting out of skids and lock-ups. That’s what they need to know.

Not what time they have to be home at night.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 5th, 2008 at 8:16 pm and is filed under Stuff I know. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.