Another Stupid Law Proposal

From the Denver Post...

Alarmed by the recent rash of fatal traffic accidents involving teenagers, Colorado legislators plan to introduce a bill next year that would prevent newly licensed teen drivers from having young passengers in their cars.

The measure also would bar minors from driving from midnight to 5 a.m. until they have had a license for at least a year.

At Thursday's meeting of the Transportation Legislation Review Committee, lawmakers agreed to promote a measure in the 2005 legislative session that would prevent a minor driver from having any passenger under 21 in the car for the first six months the minor holds a driver's license.

What a misguided law this would be. Why are we putting more restrictions on certain people after we have licensed them. Imagine licensing a doctor, and then telling them they can only perform certain types of procedures for the first six months. Imagine telling child-care workers they can only watch a certain age of kid for the first year. Imagine telling a barber, he can only cut certain types of hair for the first six months. It sounds stupid because it is. It's the same with driving.

A license is a certificate that tells everyone that a certain person has passed all the qualifications in order to do a certain thing. Like driving. Once someone is licensed, the state is telling them they have licence to perform the said action in full. What these lawmakers want to tell teens is that yes, we think you should be able to drive, but we don't think you should have the pivilages of driving. This is wrong-headed.

The problem isn't that too many teens in a car cause accidents, it's that we've licensed too many drivers that can't drive. We are giving out licenses like candy. If someone is not a capable driver, why are we giving them a license that says they are? What lawmakers should be doing is making sure people are qualified to drive before they get their licence. In England, someone must take lengthy written and driving tests, and pass them with 100% accuracy, or they aren't licensed. We need that here. We would be better served making sure drivers are prepared to drive before they are licensed than trying to regulate them after the fact. Common Sense, people.

Remember too, that in Colorado most of the high profile accidents have been caused by people who would not have been affected by the law. This would not have been prevented by the proposed law. Those CDOT workers killed June 4th of this year, would not have been saved. Just today Jennifer Fiskum was released from prison after killing a man while driving. She would not have been affected by this law.

We need to make sure ALL drivers are better drivers, not just teens. We need to make sure drivers are prepared to drive before getting a license. Teens should not be punished because lawmakers didn't do enough to prepare them for driving before handing them a licence. The law to ban teens from driving with teens is a wrong-headed law and should not be passed. These lawmakers can and should do better.

Comments

[mlrmpem]

Another issue is that now, kids will still travel in packs, but instead of all being contained together with one potential weapon, they will be hanging out the windows, talking on their phones, and chasing each other around, playing chicken, drag racing (I know, because I do remember being 16 years old, and I thought I was a rather good driver, so I pushed EVERY limit!) -- but now they will have multiple weapons to kill themselves with, and in my mind more distraction. I feel strongly that parents need to step up and stop expecting government/school faculty to raise their kids for them. Why can't parents set some limits - you know like back in the good old days... yeah we broke our parents rules, and sometimes we didn't get caught... but generally, all my friends parents and all my parents friends knew the rules, and so maybe your parents wouldn't see you doing donuts in the school parking lot, but somehow someway they would find out and you were busted. And busted generally meant not only no car keys (even if you bought the car yourself!) but also no going out with other kids for awhile... it really was an effective deterrent. I'll never forget the time I actually drag raced right past my dad, (oh yeah, I bought my car, not my parents)... needless to say, I also sold my car.

[Howard Smith]

Forgive if I'm wrong, but doesn't a curfew also say that minors can't be out between midnight & 5 AM? How about the cops just start enforcing the curfew? I guess that would be too easy.

[Chase]

The sad thing is that these laws always seem to pass.