How can we make young drivers slow down and drive more safely?

Question

This week two young lads were killed and another two lads seriously injured when their car hit a tree on a stretch of road near to where I live. This is not the first time, and I am sure it won't be the last. And yet, coming home last night, I saw more than one car full of young people been driven dangerously and way over the speed limit.

I personally think that new and young drivers should not be allowed to carry passengers until they reach a certain age.

Answer 1

Reducing the number of passengers in any vehicle with a new or teen driver is a good idea. We know that teen drivers are easily distracted, and the chances of an accident increases significantly when teens have other teens as passengers. Teens also have a tendency to take more chances to show off to their friends.

Many areas have adopted rules which allow only one passenger that is not a family member during the first year of driving. This is a good idea, but would be even better if it was applied to all teen drivers based upon their driving record.

Answer 2

Like naughtysissycindy above said and it is a really great ideal, anybody under the age of 18, should be limited, though that most places that would be impossible to do since the average family 2 to 3 cars now, and their kids probably drive them all at one point or another, and limiting it to one kid per car if they are under 18 wouldn't really work it puts more kids out there in separate cars making it more likely for accidents to happen, and the hole car pooling thing saves gas and the environment, environmentalist wouldnt like that very much and if they aren't happy they will make most peoples lifes a living hell... but back onto the subject, its not just the kids that is the problem, the average kid learns how to drive by watching their parents drive for 16 years of their life, if they speed all the time the kids are going to be more likely to speed, its just that most younger drivers aren't as experienced and get scared when something unexpected happens and they freeze up and thats why most younger drivers have more accidents then older drivers, and it doesn't help that illegal street racing is so ridiculously popular either and it seems that anybody under the age of 18 has to have some part in it at one time or another... In my opinion it should be mandatory for new and younger drivers to take a advanced teenage driving class at one of the many higher class driving schools.

Most young street racers think they are immortal, and when they see someone die they think that is never going to happen to me... its what I like to call the teenage immortal complex alot of younger drivers have it, kids today are being raised spoiled to the point that they dont have any self responsibility thereforth thinking that nothing bad will happen to them.

Edit June 3rd 2007 at 7:41 AM
Though if the car manufacturers and the government were willing to spend the money I am sure their is a way to improve on newer cars and include an active limiting system so say if you are in a 45 you can only go a max of 45 and when you pass 35 mph sign the car starts to slowly drop to 35 mph, this should be more then possible to do considering the opticon light system (the things that look like cameras at lights) can detect the infrared frequency given off by emergency vehicles when they are coming and change the lights accordingly to what is needed, embed a unique signature code into the vehicles so for any reason should the IR signal be blocked it will automatically report it to the proper authorities, with location and direction, this would also cut back on theft, and other things like illegal street racing etc.

Answer 3

Yes you are correct in that young drivers drive very dangerously. The rate of teenagers getting into car accidents is at an unbelievable high rate. As far as teenage driving goes I think that there is really no way to make these drivers safer or make them slow down. The only effective way really, is to make sure that they are at a responsible enough and mature age in order to drive. In my opinion the law should be changed so that if people are not enrolled into a driver's education course with a high percentage of hands on teaching then teenagers cannot get their permit until they are seventeen and their license until they are eighteen. Another thing that could help for sure is that people must have a certain amount of hours recorded driving with an adult when they have their permit. In my state the number of hours you must have down is fifty with at least twenty of those being night time driving. However, this is not the case in everuy state so I think that this should also be made into a law. I also wanted to make just one more point clear. You said "how can we make young drivers slow down and drive more safely"? However, I think a more appropriate question to the modern day relevance is "How can we make everyone slow down and drive more safely?" I cannot even begin to count the amount of drivers many of them being over twenty-one who pull out in front of me every single day and almost make me get into a car accident. A good example of this was today when I was pulling out of my local Wal-Mart. I was turning left and then their was a girl who revved up her engine and completely ran against the bumper of my car to get into the right hand lane. Well I hope I was able to help with your question and I advise you all to drive more safely and obey the speed limits, car accidents can happen in tenths of a second and it can all be because someone was going only two miles above the speed limit who ran into a person who was actually obeying the speed limit.

Answer 4

Not all teens drive like crap, but I do agree that something needs to be done. I've been driving for 10 years and have seen, and heard of many kids killed in car wrecks where speed and negligence were involved.

1. A manually adjustable governor on the teen's vehicle
2. Take away their cell phone
3. Buy them a car without a stereo system.
4. The car that the teen drives should not have an engine larger than 4 cylinders, and should not have any modifications, i.e. cool wheels, led lights, or anything else distracting. Basically they need an old international truck that the only radio it has in it is AM. If a radio at all is provided.

Actually if you look at the teen driving laws it is illegal for them to carry other teens in their vehicle but is that law ever obeyed? No its not.

Answer 5

First off, I don't want this to come off as being disrespectful. Their road rage could be subdued by getting some mumified old people off the road, that shouldn't be near a vehicle, only unless they were a passenger. It's a double edged sword. More 50 to 60 year olds need to keep better tabs on THEIR parents. They're (old drivers) are the ones we're trying to keep away from. It's tradgic when kids are together driving, on an isolated road, and have a single car accident. The best news is from the state of Missouri. If you go to a license bureau in the state, fill out the form, they can check the license # of said vehicle, and MAKE them come in for a driving test. Elderly incompentant drivers are going to be waiting in a longer line that younger ones.

Answer 6

As a 19 year old with a clean driving record i attribute it to the driving school laws. These driving schools seldom tech these children real world techniques and in return these kids (who are going to speed regardless of what we do) do not know how to handle these steel missiles. I personally (after seeing all of the moronic ADULT drivers around here) feel that a driving test should also consist of a small obstacle course requiring accident avoidance ability. I know the final answer is to keep it under the limit, but hey, are they going to listen? the only way to really cut down on accidents is to keep idiots off the road.

Answer 7

make any teenager up until the age of 20 drive one of those robin reliants remember lol lol, that's it nothing else, as much as i see teenagers sppeding down the road i also see 90 year olds driving all over the place or in the middle of the road an accident waiting to happen, for as long as irresponsible (not all) teenagers are allowed to drive a car it will always happen, parents know if there kids are mature enought to drive or not if they are help them buy a car if they're not don't buy them one, if they're still at school i can't see them having the money to buy one so the parents are equally responsible. i suppose upping the age limit to drive to 20 and trebling the insurance is one way, will make them think twice about wrecking their car eh.

Answer 8

I think every parent should get their teenage drivers one of the bumper stickers that says 'How's My Driving? Call ###-####'. They actually have those that you can order and an actual number other drivers can leave messages on. This way, parents can keep tabs on how their teen is driving. This might make teens try to drive safer - so their parents won't take away their cars!!
They also have cameras that can be put in teen's cars and parents can watch the videos online.

If I had a teen driver, I'd have these!!!!

Answer 9

i know were you are comen from mate i work on the motorways and i am one of the guys who go out and clean up all of the accidents and some sights are really bad i allways said we should get those young drivers down to the incident and show them what it is like for us when we have to come out all hours to scrape them of the road it might actully scare them and show them what speeden dos to the injuered and the familys any way there is a new law comen out soon the new drivers have to do a year of learnen before they go out for there test and for the ones who passed there test they have got a time limit to and when they are alowed to drive

Answer 10

Darwinism in action, survival of the fittest.
If you believe in god, maybe it was part of the 'big plan'
between age of 17 to 30, I went everywhere flat out, rarely less than 100mph
now I'm 50, still here, don't go much over 75 nowadays (except on motorcycle.) :o)
Stingray, your a retard, bad driving is bad driving at any age, turn off stereo, put down cell phone, look where your going not where you've been