Young Drivers

Well, I was young once and drove like a maniac for a few years.  Well, I used to change gears quickly and rev the engine and such daring things like change down into 2nd at the corners rather than use the brakes.  The difference is that my car was an old Toyota Celica with a MASSIVE 2000cc engine and a few extractors and big exhaust whereas young guys have Lancers, Subaru Imprezas, Golf GTI, V8 Ford and Holden and Lancers (ok Maybe Lancers aren't that racey but they look nice) and they can go MUCH faster.

Young motorbike drivers have 1000cc bikes - the comment from car drivers is that "we cannot see bikes" and bike rides have stickers saying "look out for us" ... so do cyclists for that matter.  Anyway, when bikes are weaving in and out of peak hour traffic on the inner-city bypass at high speed, YOU CANNOT SEE THEM.  They often sit annoying at the right back corner of your car, so close that even braking would cause them to crash.

Back to cars and young people ...

We have tried increasing the cost of insurance but maybe we should go further and gear the rego and insurance costs to match the power of the vehicle.  For example:

1. old Datsun 120Y - $600 rego and std insurance
2. Subaru Impreza - $3,000 rego and 4 times normal insurance.
3. 120cc motor bike - std rego and insurance
4. 1,000 CC Honda motor bike (for a young rider) - 4 times the std rego and insurance.

This needs to be geared to AGE as well.  We do not want kids who have just got their licence hopping on incredibly powerful bikes or driving powerful cars.  Read the news and almost daily you will see stories like "car ends up in roof of house" and "car leaves road" and when you see the horrific footage you cannot even recognise the model of the car.  The comment is that "we suspect speed may have been involved" -  well, hell yes, the car has mounted the gutter and had enough momentum to fly through the air at about 10 foot high and land in someone's roof.   That doesn't happen when you are doing 60 my son.

I guess at the core, when I was young I wanted to drive fast and I did but the machinery wasn't nearly so dangerous as todays cars.  Car makers are making them faster and faster whereas they need to be going the other way.  Eventually all cars will be electronically speed-limited (in built-up areas, it will be physically impossible to go above 50 and on highways no more than 100km) but, until then we need some way to prevent the CARNAGE on our roads and I don't see much evidence it is improving despite all the "blitzes".  Technically, I think the figures are slightly better but the accidents are so much worst due to the speeds involved.  The other thing is just to have speed restricted by age so you have a key encoded with your age and it controls your speed - takes the fun out of things but hitting a post at 120km/hour ain't fun and more often than not, it is some other innocent bystander or passenger who dies or is maimed rather than the driver.

I guess I was also chicken in that if my car did slide a little when I went around a corner, it scared the hell out of me.  Just like the time I was driving in pelting rain near Canberra and I hit a pothole spinning the car end over end (sideways) and we ended up facing the wrong way on the wrong side of the road - a miracle we weren't taken out by semi-trailer or car coming the other way ... needless to say, I drove a little more cautiously for the rest of the trip.

Why are we so incapable of doing something about this issue rather than the same old BS that hasn't worked ??????  If kids can control their speed (and alcohol/drugs sometimes involved) the speed has to be controlled for them and other road users...

People have too many rights these days - the right to drive incredibly fast and hurt themselves and others - ask yourself "is that really a right we thing all drivers should have?"