Posted on 05/19/2006 8:32:12 PM PDT by devane617
May 18, 2006
Albany -- There is talk of raising Georgia's driving age to 17 or 18.
Why? Because so many teenage drivers are killing themselves-- and others. Six thousand teen fatalities in the United States last year. The biggest threat to their well-being seems to be distracted driving. So what can we do to protect them from themselves?
Teens behind the wheel give new meaning to multi-tasking. Phones, CD players, and friends, distract young drivers-- who can least afford it.
Stephanie Phillips has, not one, but two teenage girls. 16-year old Amore is already driving. and 15-year old Charity is just beginning. Stephanie worries about driving distractions. "They're young and they're carefree, and nothing can happen, they think."
They think, but they're wrong. "The accident rate has been basically off the scale." Bill Hammack is the continuing education director at Albany Tech and is in charge of the driver's education program. "They lead the pack when it comes to, statistically, more of them get injured and killed than any other category of people that drive in the United States."
Every day, he and his instructors try to convince teens the importance of focusing on their driving. "Driving is a full-time endeavor, not something that you can pay attention to part of the time. You've got to be on top of the game all the time when you're driving."
In Albany Tech's driver's ed classes, students spend 40 hours learning the rules of driving. "Most of them, believe it or not, know how to drive. The big challenge is getting them to pay attention to what they're doing when they're driving," says Hammack.
What they're doing when they're driving, he says, is the problem. "Cell phones, I-Pods, changing CDs in their dash player, all those things are big distractions."
Big distractions that worry Stephanie Phillips. "The thing is not getting so caught up in the fun activities going on in the car with your friends, you know, the radio going, the dancing.
So, like many other parents, she has rules. "Seat belts are a must for every person in the car. No speeding. Be off your cell phone, which I think is probably one of the hardest to abide by."
And she's right. "With the cell phone issue, I mean, I answer my cell phone because it rings, and my cell phone is, like, my life," said Amore'.
"Cell phones are right at the top of the list. Or, right now, it's called distracted driving," said Hammack. Distracted driving that we, as parents, are partly responsible for. "I think we have failed. We have not built that pay attention factor into driving because we've been guilty of it ourselves."
So what can be done to make teen drivers safer? "Senate Bill 226 states all 16 year olds must have completed driver's ed before they can be licensed in the state of Georgia," said Hammack.
Beginning January 1st, driver's ed classes will be mandatory to get a Georgia license. "If they don't understand the hazards and how to recognize them, they're never going to be in the position to minimize those hazards or avoid them altogether," he said.
Avoiding hazards is something Amore Brock knows about. "You gotta be aware of that and be aware of your surroundings because anything can happen even if you're doing everything right."
And everything right includes buckling up. "It's just standard, you know. It's seatbelt on and you know if the person beside me doesn't have it on I make sure they have it on," says Charity.
Right now, there are more than 4,000 14 to 16 year olds in Dougherty and Lee Counties alone. They'll soon be on the roads, driving. That affects us all. That's why it's up to us all to help them. "Everyone that comes in contact with these youngsters has got to make them see somehow that the hazards are there and those hazards are 'gonna bite you if you don't accept responsibility as an adult driver," says Hammack.
Adult driving responsibilities that may one day be reserved for adults. "I can see the driver's age, if things don't get better soon, maybe going to 17 or 18 years of age before they're even allowed to drive."
If that happens, Georgia will become the strictest state in the nation for teen driver's licenses. A law change that won't affect the Brock girls, but it could well be the key to saving young drivers' lives.
And then there all the geezers driving. But they will keep their licenses, because they vote.
Really? Was that in the 1920s or something? It does make sense.
I was in a similar situation. I drove for 2 years without a license because of some technical difficulty with the state regarding who my legal guardian(s) were lol. For money, I HAD to work, which meant I had to drive. I had no choice. When I was 18 I finally got a license because I was an 'adult'.
My father used to work for the DMV, California. He pulled an old guys license and refused to give it back. The State received a very nast letter from the former drivers son. I'm not sure if my father really should have done what he did, but his supervisor was not very happy with him, and later on, my dad lost his license as well.
I grew up in the country, where most boys were driving on the road by 14. Hell, one owned a Z28 by that time (drove it like a grandma).
If you've got an inexperienced driver behind the wheel then you've got a dangerous situation. Raising that age to 18 won't change that equation.
Things are so different today...my father started teaching me to drive when I was 10, sitting me in his lap and letting me steer. The big malls were closed on Sundays when I was a kid and he would let me drive in the empty parking lot. Later, he would take me to the empty parking lot in winter and I had to practice driving in snow.
I was driving the family tractor on the highway when I was 14, but that was legal for farm kids back then. But my parents didn't allow me to get a drivers license until I was 17. I concur that 16 is too young, but I also think that kids today have an order of magnitude more distractions than when I was a kid. Plus I've seen studies that suggest kids today feel more invulnerable because of air bags and anti-skid brakes, etc, and so take more chances.
Draft them into the Army and send them to Iraq. They'll be safer there. (And more useful when they get out) :-)
The thinking part of a human brain does not mature until 18 for the majority of us. Kids should NOT get their liscense until 18.
Amen Amen Amen! I'm with you!
When I was a young lad, there were all these old men driving with hats, at 35 miles per hour, gripping the wheel for dear life, on all those two lane highways, that are now largely gone. This was back around 1960. My dad called them fudds, as he zipped past them, in the other lane, and making caustic comments when passing was not possible. I assumed they learned to drive later in life.
hydrolic=hydraulic
Here in Texas a Drivers Test in the car is not required. Just pass an eye test and a smal written test, and away you go.
Mom called them "hats." As in, "Oh no, we're behind a hat." They're still alive and well, and you can still observe them in their natural habitat here in Indiana.
I think if they would just say 16/17 year old's...could only be out driving between 0600 and 2000...alot of the stupid accidents would end. But no state has the guts to do that. So I'm guessing raising the age to 17 is the only method they could enact without serious complaints.
My grandfather got a ticket for driving 20 miles per hour in Washington DC. The speed limit was 15 miles per hour or something. That was around 1910 or so. At least that is the tale my grandmother used to tell me. Driving too much faster than horses could go, I guess was dangerous.
Find you an IH Scout, and you will have a REAL 4x4.
They died out a long time ago, in the West.
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