What's with kids these days?

[purplepickup]

I thought of your post this morning as I was listening to the news on the way to work.  A car with 5 kids in it in downtown Kalamazoo slammed into a motel at over 100 mph in a 25mph zone.  They hit the curb and went airborne. There was a girl sitting on the driver's lap facing him before the crash, who somehow survived, but two were killed and everybody else is in bad shape.  Luckily they missed the woman sleeping in the motel room.  They said alcohol was involved.

I heard on the radio yesterday that the state is thinking about limiting the number of kids that can be in a teenger's car.  They say that the number of serious crashes involving kids is proportionate to the number of kids in the car......more kids equals more chance of a serious crash.  That wouldn't have helped in this case tho since the driver was 27.  Everyone else was a teenager tho.

[nzsimon]

I did 3 years in the fire service as  pump operator / driver and the worst thing was the car accidents with the worst being car vs train

I feel for you and know as well as you do that talking about it is part of coping with the job

Haveing seen a few things I don't want to remember and blown into a few humans it can be a rough life offset by fantastic emotional rewards when it all doesn't go pear shaped

I enjoyed my time in the service but I am glad that I left as well the whole responsibility thing can be a big weight

As now a plain citizen I am honoured to say thanks to those that serve

[Dolly]

I guess that's why Carps is involved in teaching kids to drive properly.

What he tries to teach is not only the driving skills but to respect the machine and understand how it will work for you if you treat it right and it'll kill you if you abuse it.

He says nobody can never fully understand the effect of road trauma on emergency services people and had his head messed up pretty badly just last year when he was 'involved' in a serious road crash.  He says it's no fun watching helplessly as a young father of two toddlers, innocently driving home to his family after attending night school, burned to death in his car after being slammed into by a lunatic in a speeding car.

One key reason it's so hard to deal with this stuff is because there's no need for it to happen, it's always sensless and it always could have been avoided, by using either common sense or justa  bit of good old fashioned courtesy.

How to fix it?

I dunno.

However down this end of the planet, the rules for kids are tough.

Considering kids get a drivers license and the right to legally consume alcohol at age 18, the rules for young drivers start with 0 blood alcohol.  Yup they can have their license revoked for simply eating a chocolate liquer!  It works and most kids take turns being the designated driver when they head out on Saturday nights etc.

We also have pretty tough seatbelt rules, so there can only be as many people in a car as there are seat belts.  Additionaly since these kids have grown up in this 'seat belts save lives' regieme there's very few will get into a car when there is no seatbelt for them.

We also make it easy for other road users and the police to pic out the younger more innexperience drivers, so us allegedly sensible drivers can give them some room.  Of course it doesn't always work out that way because older more experience drivers tend also to be more aggressive.  So where did you think the kids learned their bad driving habbits?  The red P (for probationary) is easy to see and if a P plate driver is caught breaking the law, which for them is zero tollerance, they walk for three months.

And one of the big clinchers is that the rules are written so as to restrict kids ability to hurt themselves driving high powered performance vehicles that might be beyond their abilities to control properly.  Thus there is a power to weight ratio guide for P plate drivers and we do the same with young motorcyclists who are restricted to 250cc machines during their probationary period and not allowed to carry a pillion passenger until they have 3 years riding experience.

Much as I like the car movies, I think another source of this invincible mindset comes from the movies where our kids see real cars crashed time  and time again at insanely high speeds and never, not once does the driver or the passengers die a painful death.  Think about it, when was the last time you saw someone die in a movie car crash.  It's no wonder they think they are invincible doing stuff they've seen in the movies.  Hollywood has a lot to answer for!

Sorry for my little rant, but this is a subjet Carps has made me as passionate about as he is.