I get the younger kids. Not making excuses for it but I understand it. When you are younger, you don't have the perspective. Every thing going on in your social life does seem to be of extreme importance, the center of your universe. You just don't have the life experience.
At 45 you really should have the impulse control and the cause/effect skills.
I completely agree with you that 45 year olds should know better. But I don’t excuse young adults or their parents either. I would never let a two year old run out into the street alone because they don’t know better. These teens and older have to know that operating a vehicle is a responsibility and given the fact that they have control over something that can easily end people’s lives, they need to start acting like they can handle the responsibility or they should lose the privilege.
No one should have the “right” to endanger your life by their reckless behavior and it’s always the other guy who should stop until that time it isn’t the other guy anymore.