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Filed under: Accidents, Cars, P Plates, Road Safety

86 comments

I was sitting at traffic lights the other day making my way to a gig in the Hunter Valley. It was lashing rain and the weather was terrible – you could barely see the road up ahead let alone the other traffic.

The turned-over car in a fatal P-plate crash in Sydney this week. Picture: Bill Hearne

As I waited for the lights to change, a car pulled up alongside me. Glancing briefly to the left I saw the familiar P plate on the window screen. The car was a six-cylinder and the young driver at the steering wheel seemed far too eager to put each cylinder to use.

“Alright buddy”, I grumbled as I heard the intermittent and very familiar revving of his car, “hold your horses”. The lights changed and the young driver shot off like a bullet.

I shook my head. “What an idiot!” No sooner had the words left my mouth than I saw the driver lose control, slamming his brakes and swerving along the road. Luckily the opposite lane was empty.

“Shit!” I yelled with horror, fearing the worst. Thankfully the young man regained control of his car but then, as though he needed to prove some point, sped off even faster up the road.

It was enough to make anyone sick. What a super star!

This sort of craziness drives me up the walls – what sort of maniac drives like this?

When I see these kids thundering through the streets I can’t hold back – who are these fools, where are they going in such a hurry and where the hell do they get the money for such powerful machines?

I’ve realised lately that I’ve reached a point in my life where these things really matter to me.

When I was younger and learning to drive I never worried about this kind of thing but then again I certainly never had a car as fast as some I see on the roads.

When I was in my early twenties it began to have an effect but now it simply infuriates me. The advertisement campaigns are everywhere, the statistics are pretty much black and white – the facts are simple, speed kills and P-platers are dying on our roads every week of every year.

It’s obviously not just P-platers, but for me, seeing images on the news of young adults who have lost their lives due to car accidents is really disturbing. Nobody wants to see a young life cut short so abruptly.

I am now a parent and I can’t help but worry – my kids will get to the legal age before I know it and is this what they’ll come up against – fast cars and lack of experience. Showing off and trying to impress.

I’m not preaching, I know what it’s like. I can still remember the thrill of driving for the first time and of the feeling of great speed. It’s a fabulous rush of lunacy that can outweigh any dangers.

But I honestly don’t remember things being as bad when I was a teenager.

Maybe I’m just fooling myself. Either way, I’m an adult now and I can see things a lot more clearly, and I hate the view.

This last week alone there have been multiple deaths on our roads involving young teenagers – it seems like it never ends.

I don’t know what the solution is, and accidents will always happen irrespective of age or experience. The zero tolerance laws have certainly had an effect and the ongoing debate about raising the driving age is still causing a stir. The fact remains though, we need to do what’s necessary to protect our youth, even from themselves.

All I know is that when we drive we take not just our own lives in our hands, but everyone else’s who we meet on the road.

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86 comments

Show oldest | newest first

- AFR says:
  
  08:11am | 11/02/10
  
  I got my licence in the mid 90’s in rural NSW. Drag racing our cars out of town (on the backroads) was just the done thing, and we never really thought too much about it. In hindsight of course i’m not proud of it.
  
  I don’t think kids are getting worse, but there is a lot more people, especially in urban areas, and that puts more at risk generally.
  
  Reply
- southernX says:
  
  08:25am | 11/02/10
  
  Here’s a suggestion = if the parents by the car, make them liable for manslaughter…...
  
  Reply
BobM says:

11:07am | 11/02/10

You obviously don’t have teenage children.
Michael says:

02:12pm | 11/02/10

...or any knowledge of law or its application.
Whatever says:

05:02pm | 11/02/10

or how to use the words by and buy in a sentence.
Dotty says:

11:23pm | 11/02/10

... or how many dots to include in an ellipsis (three).
Yekkers says:

11:36pm | 11/02/10

Pwned.

No, but seriously, parents aren’t completely responsible for what their children do. If a law like that was introduced, the consequences of speeding or driving in some other unsafe manner would have no impact on the young person at the wheel.

Drivers need experience, proper teaching, a sense of responsibility, and a better understanding of how to avoid unsafe situations as much as possible. I think it might be more effective if the media took a slightly different angle, one where people who drive recklessly are made to feel like idiots. I also think that a sense of responsibility comes with age (and other experiences such as moving out of home, getting a job, etc), but this doesn’t mean that people should be taught to drive later in life, because as others have said, young minds are better at learning.
- KH says:
  
  08:27am | 11/02/10
  
  Look who you are talking about. The most selfish generation ever produced in the history of the world. These people just don’t care about anyone else, it’s all about them. They are the centre of the world. Every stupid moronic thought they have must be twittered, or broadcast via their ‘status’ on facebook, as if they are just so important that every piece of crap that comes out of their mouths is gold. They have attention spans of approximately 30 seconds - a lifetime of TV and internet use where they want everything NOW. Stupid parents whose guilt about working means they get all the gadgets they want, including the high powered cars. They are rude, inconsiderate, and completely self absorbed.
  
  Most P-plater age people these days have never been taught respect for others. Their parents let the little darlings run amok so they could ‘express themselves’, even if it is at the expense of others’ enjoyment of the place they are, be it a restaurant or a cinema or whereever. Their whole lives have been a wall to wall me-fest. Loud inappropriate phone conversations on public transport, drunken screaming late at night in quiet streets, the list goes on - there is no consideration for others - just themselves.
  
  You don’t seriously expect them to care about others on the road?
  
  Reply
wolf says:

09:32am | 11/02/10

It’s nothing a good beating wont fix.

Seriously.

These days if parents even think about physically disciplining their children the authorities are all over them. Some negative reinforcement early on in life would help focus their attention to the fact that actions have consequences.
Nicole says:

11:40am | 11/02/10

Wow, what a colossal generalisation. You must have encountered some truly heinous teenagers / twenty year olds to have such a negative view of my generation. I’m twenty years old and I have never sped or driven with alcohol in my system (can you say the same?), never ‘run amok’ in a cinema or restaurant, created a Twitter account, demanded gadgets from my parents, screamed drunkenly late at night or had loud inappropriate conversations on the train. I don’t deny that obviously P-Platers seem to be killing themselves with remarkable efficiency (and they get no sympathy from me - anyone who gets behind the wheel drunk, ready to speed, or unlicensed is IMO as guilty as someone who waves a loaded gun around) but I hope you really don’t think we’re all as bad as that. Tell me what area of Australia you’re from and I’ll try and avoid it - wouldn’t want to encounter these rude inconsiderate brats
Martin G says:

02:09pm | 11/02/10

How old are you again, KH? Excellent display of your maturity there with sweeping generalisations.
JD says:

04:00pm | 11/02/10

Interesting points of view there. If you like, i can generalize the elderly that barracade supermarket aisles and fail to look when they change lanes, nearly, on several occasions running myself, and my young family off the road, many “30+ers” that dont like sitting behind a P plater like myself, and have the need to Tailgate, and speed off at the first sign of clear space to overtake. The 40+ers that rant and rave about never having it as good as kids do today…The list goes on. Most selfish generation? me thinks you protest too much, look at your behavior here.
Rude, generalized, and very narrow minded…you must be one of todays generation you talk about.
48yo grumpy old man says:

11:57pm | 11/02/10

Jeez KH, give it up. Kids inhabit the world created for them by adults. If young males are brainwashed to believe that a motor vehicle equals maturity, masculinity and a whole heap of other stuff then blame Detroit and Hollywood for starters.
Weren’t you ever young and stupid?
“What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?” - Plato
Jeff says:

06:12pm | 18/02/10

just like you did to your parents in the 60’s and 70’s - We are all the same just that you are old and whine way too much, unless your a bloody pomm!
Grumpy old man again says:

01:11pm | 21/02/10

Jeff, if you are referring to my post, then go back and read it again. I can help you with the hard words if you like. The last bit is a called a “quote”, ok? Sheesh
MarK says:

08:46pm | 21/02/10

The most selfish generation ever produced in the history of the world. ?
I’m sorry i didnt know we were talking about the Baby Boomers,
Yes Gen y , we were never taught respect for others, hang on whats taht word taught mean? Engrish skills n0t gr8 4 my gneration, apparently it must mean use psychic mind reading pwoers to absorb these values from their parents who funnily enough were too greedy/busy/lazy to bother teaching them.
Who are their parents? late Boomers and early X’ers… oh dear
- Justin says:
  
  08:31am | 11/02/10
  
  Driving is our society’s greatest contradiction. If everyone took a legal drug that directly killed (i.e. you take it & have an immediate adverse reaction that kills you) 400+ people a year (the NSW road toll) & directly injured thousands more, how long would that drug remain on the market? Would it even make it to market?
  
  If any other thing in our society had that level of directly causing death, it would be banned. So why do we have this anomaly with driving? Perhaps we should look at that before targeting small segments of drivers - i.e. look in the mirror & ask yourself, “would I carry a gun?” If the answer is no, why do you drive a car when they proportionally kill many more people?
  
  You’re packing heat & you don’t even realise it. More & more people are, so of course there will be more flashpoints. Young drivers might not consider how deadly a car is, but plenty of older drivers don’t either.
  
  Reply
Ben says:

09:09am | 11/02/10

Um, Justin, don’t more people die or get injured/sick from smoking & drinking related injuries/illnesses from a much smaller pool?
Justin says:

09:48am | 11/02/10

Um, Ben, what part of “i.e. you take it & have an immediate adverse reaction that kills you” don’t you understand?

It’s quite easy to avoid boozed up violence trouble spots, but you can’t avoid the road, even if you’re not a driver. It’s quite easy to avoid smoking & drinking yourself.

Most (nearly all) road deaths or injuries are unintentional. Any other product with that kind of record would be considered defective.
DG says:

10:48am | 11/02/10

Driving doesn’t have an immediate and adverse reaction that kills you any more than a bee sting does or a plastic bag.

It takes a special type of person to kill themselves while driving - especially with the advent of seat belts and airbags. Really there are only 3 options:
(a) mechanical error,
(b) driver error.

Of course a person could be killed by another driver, but that is still driver error (the error of the driver causing the accident).

Your logic appears to be that it is possible to kill someone with a car therefore it should be banned. We should ban just about everything, because, in the hands of an idiot or psychopath, just about anything could directly kill 400+ people a year.

As for comparing a car with a gun - what is the purpose of a car? to move a person from point A to point B. What is the purpose of a Gun? To fire a projectile at a target with substantial force and accuracy. Now people need to get from A to B on a daily basis, what need is there to fire projectiles at targets?

Further, in response to the demand for the opportunity to fire projectiles at targets we have gun clubs and shooting ranges where that activity can lawfully be carried out by licenced individuals. Further we have areas where those projectiles can be fired at living things (commonly known as hunting), again, by licenced individuals.
Justin says:

11:59am | 11/02/10

DG,

Driving can have an immediate adverse reaction - just because it doesn’t happen the first time you get behind the wheel doesn’t eliminate that. You could have been driving without incident for 20 years & then one day you jump in the car & get wiped out by a garbage truck when coming out of your driveway. Same could happen for a pedestrian.

The fact that a cars primary purpose isn’t to kill, yet it does many, many times, is testament to why it’s a contradiction. The department of fair trading will often come out & ban products that cause unintended harm.

I don’t think cars should be banned, it’s just strange that they’re treated so differently to other things in our society. Take the recent pram recall in the US & UK. The issue was that if you folded them in a way that wasn’t recommended, you could accidentally slice off finger tips. You can do that in a car door, so why hasn’t every car been recalled?

It goes to the argument that driving simply isn’t treated with the respect that it deserves because it’s somehow bypassed by our usual protections. The fact that a vehicle can kill almost as easily as a gun, yet it isn’t designed to, should make people respect it even more, but sadly many don’t.

The way people get in to a car after a day’s work & then switch off their brain should be disturbing, but most people don’t even know they do it. If driving is treated as a societal contradiction, it won’t get the respect it deserves.
- Red says:
  
  08:40am | 11/02/10
  
  It’s nothing new. My father - a mid-60s cardigan-wearing careful conservative driver, still wryfully talks about how in the early 60’s they’d knock down a few middies then drive home at 90mph and sometimes lose the headlights to mke it more of a challenge. Sure it was on country roads, but the point is that there have always been idiots, and there will always be idiots.
  The best we can do it to reduce OHS/safety laws so the idiots remove themselves from the gene pool faster, because morons beget morons.
  The problem with THAT is that stupid drivers kill bystanders as often as they kill themselves.
  So you see, there’s no simple answer…!
  
  Reply
Overit says:

09:21am | 11/02/10

It’s harsh, Red. But it makes sense.
Matt says:

01:31pm | 12/02/10

Completely agree. The world is going downhill because we’re trying to keep idiots alive. 2 words: Natural Selection
- Matt says:
  
  08:53am | 11/02/10
  
  The problem is not so much that young people have changed that much from days gone by, but that cars these days are way more powerful (even the 4 cylinder ones) and that there are plenty more people on the road.
  
  The more people there are, the more people that are going to get injured/killed. The percentages may not move that much, but the actual numbers will.
  
  We need to raise the legal age to 21, with 3 years of probation, and restrict not the size of the engine, but the power of the car that young people are allowed to drive.
  
  And lastly, there needs to be a massive increase in the punishments that the courts are handing down. The softly softly approach simply is not working. I think this has been proven quite categorically. Start crushing cars and implementing actual jail time (NO suspended sentences). These people are committing these acts of their own free will, so coming up with some sob story about their bad upbringing to get a reduced punishment, bears no relevance on the case.
  
  Reply
Your name:Phil says:

09:44am | 11/02/10

Fail.

Reducing the power to weight ratio wont stop it. Sure it may delay a few kids hitting poles on corners while its raining but that doesnt stop the way they want to drive, you get kids in excels which are a 1.3l engine driving it to redline and trying to extract every single kw it has flogging the car to death in the process.

A 20 or 25 year old car can still eventually do 110kph+ and anyone driving it at those speeds are more likely to die at higher speeds in a crash.

It is all about the attitude of kids these days, they have no interest in anyone else and dont think of the consequences of their actions.
Shinsengumi says:

01:08pm | 11/02/10

Raising the driving age to 21 will exacerbate the problem. Research from the Swedish Institute of Transport my Father (Western Region RTA Road Safety Mgr for almost a decade) had access to showed young brains learn faster than older ones where motor skills were concerned. There are several European countries where learning how to drive + handle + brake is a part of your yr8/yr9 high school education. Because brain plasticity at that age is far superior then than after 18+

Sports being an excellent example. 12 and 14 year old kids can learn a high coordination sport very quickly; to learn the same sport to the same hand-eye coordination proficiency when you are 21+ will take 4 to 20 times longer than the 12-14 year old.

Introducing people to driving at 21 will substantially worsen the problem. Giving people nothing but a computer test, no real-life training, no practical instruction in any shape or form, is negligence. In any other industry, OH&S laws prohibit placing someone in an operational capacity without proper training. The RTA would be criminally negligent if it were subject to OH&S legislation governing any other industry. The RTA is giving licenses to people who have NOT BEEN TRAINED to drive.
Tom says:

03:05pm | 11/02/10

So Phil, it’s ‘kids these days’, is it? Considering the road toll for young drivers has always been far higher per capita than the road toll generally, I would say that it is a problem with the young mind. This is not a recent problem, or one that is unique to the current generation.
LC says:

03:39pm | 20/03/11

The problem with raiding the driving age is that a lot of people under 21 need access for cars for employment purposes, such as those who become plumbers, engineers, tradespeople, builders etc. As a result these people will start driving unlicensed and uninsured, and if they hit you they will be unlikely to have sufficient assets to sue, meaning you won’t see a cent from the insurance companies. Either that or they’ll go on the dole and entrain themselves with alcohol in the interm. So society will pay the same amount, if not more.
- Rosemary says:
  
  09:06am | 11/02/10
  
  Damien, I don’t have an answer for you. I have 3 P Platers living here and 1 wannabe. One of the P’s fits into your description but the law brought him back to earth. He didn’t cause any loss of life thankfully, but he did lose his licence. He now has it back and realises how important it is to do the right thing. The others saw what he went through without it and the inconvenience it was to others. They don’t want to lose their freedom so they drive appropriately.
  I, personally would be shattered if any of them now stooped to the irresponsible driving that you have written about.
  
  KH, your post is so true for a lot of this generation.
  
  Red, I was also an idiot in my day regarding drinking and driving, also testing out the strength of the street lights by turning my headlights off.
  I was a fool and I don’t want my young ones to follow my lead.
  
  It is not only better driving that comes with experience but life and understanding in general comes with maturity.
  
  Reply
Julia says:

09:29am | 11/02/10

I’ve always thought that P platers should be given two chances. If they don’t learn from the first serious mistake, and the offend again, then they don’t get their licence back.

Clearly you’ve done something right that your P platers have played around but realised it’s more than just playing around.

Unfortunately, some parents don’t believe the laws apply to them, so their kids also don’t believe the rules apply to them.
Julia says:

03:19pm | 11/02/10

I was severely injured in a car accident in the late 80s by a speeding vehicle (100k in a 60k zone) driven by a 19-year-old man. He explanation for such excessive speed? He liked the thrill of driving fast.

Twenty or so years on, some young people are still driving recklessly and under the influence of drugs and/or acohol. Gen Y is no worse than Gen X was - it’s just now we know more about their exploits via the proliferation of news and social media.
- Dolly Llama says:
  
  09:22am | 11/02/10
  
  When I am overtaken on double lines and cut off, just the usual road dramas one has come to expect these days, I know that the car involved will be a Commodore and a small runty type human with a cap on backwards will be the driver, you know the type…....A TEMPORARY AUSTRALIAN!
  
  I always hope that I am not going to see the fool wrapped around a tree and splattered everywhere, around the next bend!
  
  Reply
- fluffy says:
  
  09:33am | 11/02/10
  
  why cant speed camera revenue ( where does all that money go? ) be used to pay for police officers in unmarked cars. then perhaps, the slogan, speed cameras save lives.. might have a little ring of truth to it.
  
  its not good enough that you, me, and every other driver, can see people such as this driving badly every day, and its not just p-platers driving with such disregard, but they do it because theres a good chance they wont get caught. if the police traffic dept was actually doing some policing, instead of simply taking pictures of cars, things might be different.
  
  Reply
David says:

09:58am | 11/02/10

Agree with you fluffy. The police would do well to do some policing.

I was driving home from work yesterday around 5:45pm and was being very well behaved as I had a police car right behind me. I was, however, astounded when at the traffic lights on Victoria Road, just before the ANZAC Bridge, when the car immediately in front of me drove straight through a red light.

Knowing the police were directly behind me and had a clear view, I was expecting to have to move out of the way as they pursued this reckless moron who ran the light in front of a wave of oncoming traffic. But alas, no action.

Looking in my rear view mirror, it was not surprising that the police did nothing. The policewoman driving the vehicle was too busy talking on her mobile phone to notice.
Me! says:

11:47am | 11/02/10

But it doesn’t help matters when other drivers warn you of an impending camera on the side of the road, giving the offending driver time to behave for the camera, then speeding off again 500m down the road. So really the aussie looking after your mates attitude is very detrimental to the cameras trying to make a difference to catching the inattentive, speeding hoon!
- Phil says:
  
  10:10am | 11/02/10
  
  Ive been saying it forever but it comes back to driver education, training and attitude. Learner drivers & P platers get none of the first two and have too much of the last one.
  
  Kids these days are all about me me me, they have no interest in the consequences of what can happen while they are out trying to impress their mates and have no remorse either. They have never been told No they cant have something or been in “real” trouble for their own actions - there is no accountability so the worst they think is they will get told off or similar which means nothing to them. Even if they lose their license out of foolishness it doesn’t prevent them from getting in the car and driving around.
  
  Having had my car run in to by an unlicensed driver in an unregistered vehicle which was “borrowed” off a mate, once they had seen they had damaged someone elses car they all (4 of them) ran off laughing saying they didnt have a license between them! - These sorts of kids should be hung for such stupid actions, what if someone had been killed in the accident?
  
  another time when having to pass on the inside of a vehicle due to their lack of keeping left while not overtaking on a motorway while being well under the speed limit holding traffic up the bright P plater then decided to take off after me, passing cars in the breakdown lane!! to then hurl abuse and rubbish from their car at me?! all because they didnt want to let someone pass and couldnt keep left, you know just the road rules.
  What is wrong with these kids! I never acted like this and nor did anyone I know of the same age!
  
  The other issue is the fact that Australia is a country of drunks where drinking large volumes is pushed so hard that its though of as common place and that everyone does it. Mix this with teens and a car and you are asking for trouble - why this has to come as a surprise to everyone I don’t understand.
  
  Too many do-gooder parents who don’t discipline their kids, kids who have been taught to have no respect for anything or anyone, kids left to do what they want when they want, kids who aren’t afraid of the minimal amount of penalty they will receive if they do something wrong.
  
  I’m all for them crashing and killing themselves and their friends as long as they don’t take out innocent pedestrians or other motorists at the same time.
  
  Newer cars also provide a false sense of security for people, they are quiet and nice to drive, even at high speeds you can be fooled easily in to thinking you are still in control or are going slower than you really are.
  Kids these days are too “precious” to have to learn to drive in a car older then they are so the parents think so little Johnny or Kate gets a 30-100k car to drive around in (well in lots of parts of Sydney) Sure it makes them safer in the event of an accident but it also removes a lot of the feel of driving, i remember my first car worth a matter of a few hundred dollars with all its quirks, noises etc which made you very aware of what the car was doing and you could tell when it was almost at its limits it didn’t have such a huge sense of safety that new cars do, making you more aware you shouldn’t act like an idiot!
  
  Reply
Jessica says:

11:47pm | 30/05/10

So we should all go out and buy un-roadworthy cars to get a more realistic sense of how “secure” it is? That’ll help.
- grant says:
  
  10:15am | 11/02/10
  
  Fact
  
  Road deaths are reducing.
  
  There is no problem, and is purely reactionary based on a spike of accidents anecdotel experience
  
  Reply
Alex says:

11:11am | 11/02/10

Fact: road deaths amongst males aged 17-25 are not reducing.

They’re causing crashes at a rate at least twice that of than any other group.

There is a problem.
- DG says:
  
  10:35am | 11/02/10
  
  Wow - kids getting to 17 and facing the consequences of their actions. What a shame.
  
  The media also has a big part to play in these stories - Instead of reporting that a “Yet another teenager has committed suicide today by driving like an idiot while trying to evade police in a stolen vehicle” the report will likely read “A teenager died as a result of a police pursuit in heavily congested suburban streets”. In those circumstances the driver is seen as a victim rather than responsible for their own actions.
  
  And then every story is sugar-coated, accompanied by comments from distraught family members “he was such a good boy…” - How about a huge, steaming dose of reality “Hes not a good boy - he was speeding in dangerous conditions, while drunk. The good news is that he didn’t kill anyone other than those who were stupid enough to get in the car with a drunk driver”.
  
  Only one of my mates (we are all in our 20’s now) has ever been done speeding. He had the gall to complain that he had been done speeding and that it was unfair because the cop didn’t have a sign up saying “I’ve got a camera” - my response (and one echoed by my other mates) “Suck it up *expletive*head, you were breaking the law. Don’t try to blame someone else for catching you”. To my knowledge he hasn’t been done speeding since.
  
  Maybe if more people would call their mates when they were doing the wrong thing, rather than supporting them in their delusions, and the media would report in a manner that reflected the drivers responsibility, the road would be a safer place.
  
  Reply
Darren says:

11:37am | 11/02/10

DG,your comment is refreshing to say the least.I can see by your punctuation that you are a person that likes to learn properly..it flows on through your attitude towards idiotic driving.For this 43 year old bloke it’s nice to see that there are still young people that can get things right.
James says:

12:42pm | 11/02/10

Worry not, Darren. There are many of us in our twenties who share DG’s outlook. Thing is, you don’t hear about us on the news, because we are too busy not killing our friends in drunken high speed crashes. Nor do you notice us because we do not have inappropriately loud phone conversations on public transport, or scream drunkenly on quiet suburban streets. Don’t let the noisy minority skew your view of our generation - they are the minority, but get noticed far more because of the behaviour other posters here have mentioned.
Bitten says:

02:50pm | 11/02/10

Hear hear, DG. I was a teenager once too and am in my mid-twenties now. Apparently I was a gross aberration in Australian society because I was never caught speeding with a blood alcohol content of 0.19 having spun out and wrapped my car around a power pole, killing 4 passengers. People who bang on about how “nobody’s perfect” and “everyone makes mistakes” are disgusting in my opinion as they effectively try to make everyone who has behaved disgracefully feel better by abdicating responsibility and smooth over the errors of others so as to make us a society of inadequate, irresponsible morons, but hey, “we’re all in this together”. Rubbish. Plenty of people make those mistakes, very true. Here’s the corollary: plenty of people don’t make those mistakes. Amazingly, some of us aren’t out getting tanked and deciding to break the law and put the lives of ourselves, our friends and innocent third parties at risk. Shocking, I know. Some of us attend uni, do sport and transport other people’s children in the knowledge that we are responsible for the safety of each and every person in that car with us.

My father took my brother and I on driving trips when we were in our mid-teens. We saw lots of unsafe and lots of safe driving behaviour. He taught us how to safely over-take on a highway, how to parallel park, how to let morons go way past us to get them out of our lives. He said you can only control 50% of what happens to you on the road - the other 50% is dependent on others. He told me to always let an idiot kill themselves - not me, not my passengers.
- Jeff says:
  
  10:59am | 11/02/10
  
  Kids aren’t getting worse. You’re just getting old.
  
  Tell Alan Jones I said hi.
  
  Reply
- Terry says:
  
  11:03am | 11/02/10
  
  Kids these days…. This generates has no respect…
  Sounds like the punch has turned into a nursing home conversation.
  
  Kids are the same no as they were 10, 20 and 50 years ago. The difference is the have faster cars and there are more of them. The road toll is going down, our population is going up and cars are becoming safer so it’s just another story to distract people because them media don’t want to ask the hard questions of our leaders.
  
  Could more be done, Yes will the government do anymore than a bandaid solution no. Teach people how to drive properly, maybe the parent should have to sit a refresher course before they are allowed to teach there kids. Power to weight restrictions wont fix everything but they would help. I don’t think you can change the driving age unless you want to stop kids over 18 working or you want to be driving them to work.
  
  Reply
- notSue says:
  
  11:15am | 11/02/10
  
  Unfortuantely Damien, as others have said, it isn’t a new phenomenon, far from it. Many teenage boys/young adults drive like completely irresponsible maniacs because they are immortal and invulnerable in their own eyes. They use it as a test of manhood against reach other, it’s classic ‘measuring” behaviour, mine’s bigger than your’s. Combine that with alcohol or drugs and you have a lethal cocktail. Youth, bravado and inexperience are the problem and there’s not a whole lot that can be done about that, except via education, but hubris prevents many young men learning from what they are shown about the carnage. It’s just not cool/sick/ rad/whatever and any one who worries about it is a wuss, unles it strikes close to home, then, maybe, they learn.
  
  I know of which I speak. I have been an emergency nurse and have lost several family friends and acquaintances to this tragedy over the years.
  
  Raising the driving age would od nothing to curb it, restricting the power of vehicles doesn’t stop speeding or irresponsiblity. Attitudinal change is required, and that is slowly happening. Far too slowly for many unfortunate innocent victims, I’m afraid.
  
  Reply
- RandomScrub says:
  
  11:21am | 11/02/10
  
  without being too callous, there is an element of natural selection to all of this ...
  
  Reply
Nicole says:

11:37am | 11/02/10

Yes, to a point… not if you’re the innocent bystander who gets caught up in it though.
notSue says:

11:59am | 11/02/10

Sheesh, I’d hate to know what you consider callous then! What a crock. Natural selection has nothing to do with it. You really should read up on your evolutionary theory because your interpretation of it is way off base.
The weak and the unsuitably adapted of a species die out by this law. How do you know that the young man who wraps himself around a tree at 18 wouldn’t have turned out to be the next Einstein, given time to mature and learn?
Natural selection does not apply to humans because we have a science called medicine.
Eno says:

12:33pm | 11/02/10

Wrong Not Sue - if you take the capable driving of a car as a required adaption for the modern world, as increasingly you must, then being unable to operate one safely through temperament is definately a case of natural selection.
notSue says:

01:05pm | 11/02/10

Sorry, Eno but that’s still wrong. I’m amazed at how many people misunderstand evolution. Humans are not evolving by natural selection because we have medicine and because pure survival traits are not how we choose a mate. An irresponsible driver may still produce children, before he kills himself. Driving a car (responsibly or not) is NOT a necessary adaptation!
This discussion tends to wish to trivialise a serious subject though and turn it into an intellectual debate, rather than a dicussion about what can be done to prevent further loss of life.
Sarah says:

01:14pm | 11/02/10

“How do you know that the young man who wraps himself around a tree at 18 wouldn’t have turned out to be the next Einstein, given time to mature and learn?”

Because at 18 they’re already an adult with most of their learning done.
if they’re stupid enough to drive drunk and recklessly, they’re not smart enough to be the enxt anything (except a statistic).
notSue says:

01:49pm | 11/02/10

What a pessimistic and cynical point of view! Haven’t you ever done anything stupid when you were young (I don’t know your age, obviously) and been lucky enough to live to regret it and learn from the experience?
Even Einstein made mistakes.
DG says:

04:56pm | 11/02/10

notSue is correct in for far as she points to the “evolutionary” aspect of the post. Natural selection is far more complex than the “Darwin Awards”. But then again, having a genetic predisposition to participate in risky behaviour is hardly a survival instinct.

However you did get one thing wrong. Choosing a mate based on survival traits is not an essential element of natural selection. That would be eugenics. Natural selection, on the other hand, relies heavily on trial and error and minor changes from one generation to the next rather than a deliberate selection of partners.

That said - there are two reasons for a crash - mechanical error or human error. The later causes far more accidents than the former. I have little sympathy for the 21 year old, with a high range PCA, who spreads his mates brains across a telegraph pole at 100kph, in the rain on a 60kph street. I’d certainly rather than than the same moron have a collision with another living being.

As for your “How do you know that the young man who wraps himself around a tree at 18 wouldn’t have turned out to be the next Einstein, given time to mature and learn?”. I don’t. How do you know that he wasn’t the next Martin Bryant or Ivan Milat? Does it matter? They are only wiping out their own potential - it’s just another form of suicide.
notSue says:

08:23pm | 11/02/10

DG, fair enough, though as far as I understand the difference in the terms, eugenics implies mating to express the ultimate in traits, to breed the perfect specimen if you will. (Let’s not get into philosophical waters here, it could get very messy! LOL) In the natural world, female animals breed with the strongest, fittest, etc (most likely to produce healthy, well adapted offspring) male. I agree that this is the definition of the term. However, this process facilitates natural selection by ensuring that the weaker maleshave difficulty finding mate to breed, hence ensuring the survival of the species. This still doesn’t apply to humans. Cheers.
- Greypower says:
  
  12:01pm | 11/02/10
  
  I’ve NEVER forgotten what my father told me when I was a new driver back in the 50’s and I was about 19/20?
  
  He said ” think about how YOU would feel if you’re responsible for somone’s death- you have to live with that for the rest of your life.”
  
  Reply
Kate says:

07:03pm | 11/02/10

I heard the same thing from my mum when I started driving - I’m 21. It’s a pretty powerful message if you’re smart enough to listen to it and not think ‘well it will never happen to me’.
- Toby says:
  
  12:11pm | 11/02/10
  
  I have said it before but wow, I had no idea there were so many people in Australia who have never done anything wrong and who family’s have never done anything wrong. You people are so squeaky clean I bet your all going to stay back after work to make up the time you spent reading news websites. I think a big congratulation is in order for you all. Hip Hip, hooray!
  
  Reply
- LuxuryYacht says:
  
  12:30pm | 11/02/10
  
  Driver education only seems to make kiddies (male and female drivers) even more confident in their driving. An increase in education may actually have a perverse effect as a result.
  
  And showing them tragedies or lectures by victims only tends to result in the thought that “they were just bad drivers, I am a great driver; I’ve been driving like this for ages and nothing has happened.”
  
  As a teenager (a long time ago), mates and I skylarked in cars, broke “speed records” on public streets, and didn’t get caught - I think P-plate drivers will always be P-plate drivers. None of my friends have, touch wood, ever been involved in a major car crash. I think that as you grow up, you mature and start to understand consequences better.
  
  There was one suggested that I saw recently that behavioural scientists should assess school children (even at an early age) and assess whether or not they should be able to apply for their licence at 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 or 25. Problem here is that unlicenced drivers might get behind the wheel.
  
  There’s no silver bullet and every action is likely to have at least a slight countervailing effect.
  
  Reply
- Shinsengumi says:
  
  12:54pm | 11/02/10
  
  “The advertisement campaigns are everywhere, the statistics are pretty much black and white – the facts are simple, speed kills”
  
  The advertising was effective. You have a P plater, in a car, in wet conditions, screaming off the light, doing burnouts, in a powerful car with quite possibly bald tyres, chopped ‘lowered’ springs, worn out bushes/bearings/etc; and SPEED was the SOLE FACTOR!? Brilliant. If ever there were proof Advertising works - causing people to forsake the use of their rational mind for their emotive one - there it is.
  
  Speed doesn’t kill. I’ve been in the cabin with a rally driver around South America in torrential rain flying at speeds most people would wet themselves at; I’ve raced MOTORBIKES (amateur) in rain at speeds most people will never see in their lives and I’m still alive; V8 Supercars roar around Bathurst in the rain at up to 300Kph, but the Advertisement by the Government who makes MILLIONS from Speeding each year, says Speed kills… I think I’ll believe the Government…?
  
  Ignorance does not know what it does not know, so I guess both you and the P-plater can be excused.
  
  My father was RTA Road Safety Mgr for almost a decade. He taught me how to drive when I was 10; European research he cited from back in the 70s and 80s shows young brains ‘learn’ much faster than older brains (18+) and the BEST age to teach people motoring skills is from 12 onwards. He tried to get the RTA to introduce driving as a subject in High School (Like Finland & another European country I can’t remember) but the RTA head office were totally against it.
  
  By the time I was 15, I’d done skidpan training in my own car, I’d done courses on braking distance + technique, and I’d been shown time and again in these courses that I DID NOT KNOW how to judge distance and braking requirements reliably in differing conditions. I knew that different road surfaces responded differently in the wet, that there are different stages of grip depending on how long it has been wet for; that suspension and tyre choice (soft, hard compound + tread pattern), altering your suspension geometry (lower, raise) and worn suspension components (bushes, shocks, ball joints) dramatically affect wet weather handling. I knew all this before I got my license at 17; and when I did I was thoroughly paranoid about the inexperienced idiots all around me just begging to have accidents.
  
  The knowledge I have has saved my life, given me the REASONS for driving to the conditions, and made me a defensive road citizen.
  
  All this guff about Speed killing is simply a PROPAGANDA campaign; MILLIONS are made each year from it. The real problem is not training kids how to drive when they are young, failing to prepare them with skills + knowledge for the road, and simply giving them a COMPUTER TEST before handing them car keys. The Advertising campaigns are there to justify harvesting almost 50 Million a year from your pockets…
  
  Reply
Rover says:

01:45pm | 11/02/10

So Shinsengumi, in wet conditions, do you slow down? If so, you’ve just proved that speed does kill.
Shinsengumi says:

03:16pm | 11/02/10

Ah, my dear Rover… driving to conditions, no matter how I try to twist it, cannot ipso facto equate to “speed does kill”. Being a motorcyclist, I have a lot more at risk by not driving to the conditions, and I often ride below posted speed limits on a regular basis.

As a mantra, I cannot argue against the truth of ‘speed kills’, as:
- A man fell off a balcony last night at a pool party. He fell 8, possibly 10 feet. It was speed which killed him.
- Another man, last year, was punched by another man and died. Speed also killed that man.
- Each year drunk pedestrians are hit crossing freeways/roads/falling down stairs etc. Speed kills them also.

All of the statements above are true, and are not sarcastically intended. They are 100% scientifically verifiable. However, what is wrong with them? They don’t contain the WHOLE TRUTH. They simply contain the only component which can turn a profit.

The majority of serious accidents (as classified by the RTA & Police crash reports) in adverse conditions occur at or below the speed limit. The raw RTA crash data shows on average, year over year, only 15-25% of accidents occur due to ‘Speed’. That leaves 75% (roughly) of accidents occurring at or below the speed limit.

Driver Error and Fatigue kill at least 200-300% more than Speed.

The Author, by reflexively harking back to a mantra chanted in TV advertising, chooses to ignore a HOST of behaviors demonstrated by this P plater indicating a deeper root problem: Ignorance. P plater is ignorant… why? He’s been set loose on the road without training or preparation… by whom?

As a motorcyclist, the majority of our deaths, I would say 60-70% of them, occur due to Observation, not speed. Failure of car drivers to take their eyes off their SMS’s, doing makeup, lighting cigarettes, perving at pedestrians, not bothering to check mirrors & blindspots. I was sitting behind a bus in the CBD November last year, on my bright red bike thumping away (I mean thumping) with crazy-colors helmet & white, red, blue bright jacket on, and a car driver who had been stationary behind me for I guess at least a minute lighting her cigarette & sms’ing (I was checking her out in my mirrors :D) looked up, FAILED TO SEE OR HEAR ME and, obviously only seeing the bus, drove me into the rear of the bus!!

2 yrs ago, at a set of lights in broad daylight, scanning my mirrors, I saw a couple approaching behind in a 4WD arguing. I knew they hadn’t seen me, so I moved in between the two cars in front of me then - BANG - 4WD arguing-couple rear-ended the car I’d been behind!

This is the quality of drivers I see on a DAILY basis. I see rear-end accidents on the M4/M5 below 60kph—every week—. Dangerous tailgating, especially by coppers! People sailing through red lights completely oblivious. People pulling out in front of other cars, genuinely not seeing them. I saw a 4WD in the city doing well below the speed limit swerving over 2 lanes causing traffic chaos; a tiny woman who couldn’t see over the dashboard driving it. I see bicycle riders whizzing down Oxford St STRAIGHT THROUGH RED LIGHTS. I see chicks doing their makeup in rear vision mirrors all the time - I count them each morning (to amuse myself) and 19 were doing makeup / sms’ing for long periods in the stretch from Bronte to Hyde Park this morning.

Speed is so far from the sole killer on the road it’s beyond a joke. To read the tides of fools blaming all ills of the road on ‘Speed’ does nothing but perpetuate a persistent culture of dangerous ignorance in the general driving population. Speed accounts for, AT MOST, quarter of all serious accidents; the 75-80% remaining is the behavior of Drivers themselves.
Tom says:

03:21pm | 11/02/10

Rover, his point is going 3km/h over the limit probably wont kill you. Excessive speed for the conditions does kill, but the speed limit and an appropriate speed for the conditions are two different things. On the Hume highway we have a 110km/h limit, when similar roads in other countries safely handle 120-130km/h. On the other hand we have goat tracks on which it is apparently safe to do 100km/h, on which I wouldn’t do 70.

Speed Kills is a convenient catch all moniker for a government that doesn’t want to spend money where it is needed - on better driver training (both skills and attitude)
Phil says:

03:25pm | 11/02/10

@Rover, Not driving to the conditions and YOUR ABILITY (real not in your head) kills. You have completely missed his point but assuming you learnt to drive in Australia that wouldnt surprise me.

Why actually solve the problem when you can generate a massive (im talking hundreds of millions of dollars) income from a knee-jerk reaction all while be pretending to “solve the problem” by starting campaigns with silly adverts about speed killing and then putting up speed cameras for “Safety”

If they make you feel any safer on the road you are a fool.
DG says:

05:24pm | 11/02/10

Shinsengumi - Amen.

Cars don’t kill people. People kill people. People who don’t drive to the conditions*, who drink drive or otherwise ignore the road rules. As I said above, with modern cars and all of their technical wizardry you have to do something fairly stupid to kill yourself or anyone else. Yes, doing your makeup while driving is stupid.

I also think that people need to appreciate the difference between being a defensive driver and being a submissive driver and I’d love to see every driver do a skidpan course before getting their licence.
Jason says:

07:05pm | 11/02/10

I take it not many of you can make the connection here. Driver error can cause accidents and death. The difference between 80kph and 140kph is whether you kill one, or five passengers in the accident. Not to mention most drivers could recover from an unexpected slide at 60kph, few average drivers could do so above 100kph. Speed does kill. Do you think the the impact in Mill Park last month would have sliced the car in half at 80 - i agree it would have been horrible and at least 2 would have died, but all 5?

Professional drives don’t count, they drive in race/rally cars with roll cages, helmets etc, and often on pre-prepared tracks made for the purpose.
DG says:

11:58am | 12/02/10

Jason, no one here is suggesting that people should drive above and beyond the legal speed limit. But to say that speed causes the accidents is (ignoring that physics says without speed there could be no collision), misleading. The cause of the accident was human error - the speed means that the consequences for that error are greater.
- Red says:
  
  01:12pm | 11/02/10
  
  No, speed alone doesn’t cause crashes.
  But if you do crash, the higher your speed, the more serious the injuries are likely to be.
  
  Reply
- Matt says:
  
  02:15pm | 11/02/10
  
  This could have been a n interesting article if it had actually answered the question: “has teen driving become worse?” I don’t have the data but I suspect that much like the suposed epidemic of teen drinking there has been little real change. Certainly overall road fatalities have consistently fallen over the past 30 years.
  
  Reply
- Martin G says:
  
  02:20pm | 11/02/10
  
  Part of the problem is the ill-direction of police resources.
  
  Instead of sitting behind a camera nabbing older drivers on weekdays for going 6km/h over the limit, perhaps they should direct more resources toward monitoring roads on Friday and Saturday nights, when stupid and dangerous driving is at its highest. I’ve witnessed plenty of it and all too often the police are nowhere to be seen (perhaps they are attending another alcohol-fuelled assault?).
  
  Reply
- Matt says:
  
  02:36pm | 11/02/10
  
  I spent my first birthday in hospital after a couple of kids drove over the hill on the wrong side of the road and head-on into my parents car. They were pissed, and it was in the days before compulsory seatbelts. (Sheesh, am I that old?) So, reckless driving has been around for a long time. That said, kids today are driving bigger, more powerful cars with a mistaken level of self-confidence in their ability to handle it and whatever else might be thrown at them on the road. Anyway, whatever happened to thrill of getting around town in the clapped out Datsun 120Y or your Mum’s hand-me-down Corolla for new drivers? You know, wondering whether that red light on the dash really did mean anything; whether two bucks for petrol was enough to get you tthrough the weekend; and if the shudder of the steering wheel meant you needed to put some air in the tyre or it was in fact about to fall off. Speed was never an issue with any of my cars as a P-plater. Getting out the driveway was an achievement in itself. And after a while, you’d graduate to the car done up by your mate’s best friend and which was being offered to you for a steal.
  
  Reply
- Julie Coker-Godson says:
  
  03:18pm | 11/02/10
  
  I echo some of the sentiments of the author of this article. My view is that maturity comes with age: you cannot put an old head on young shoulders. That applied to me when I first learned to drive at 18: I went into a flat panic trying to do an uphill stop/start, flew into a rage and ripped up my learners permit. The year was 1969. I had another go in my early 20s when my erstwhile ex-boyfriend decided that the best way for me to learn was chasing after wild pigs in Nyngan (with him sitting on the top rack with his shotgun) at night!! The front end of the vehicle ended up in a ditch we couldn’t see because of long grass, the boyfriend ended up on his bottom on the ground. He was damn lucky the shotgun didn’t go off. Thankfully neither of us was hurt. The year was 1973. No more attempts were made by me to acquire a drivers licence until 1986 when I bought my first vehicle and my father took me out to quiet streets to learn how to CONTROL my vehicle. What followed was six weeks of driving lesson with Dad and the final six weeks “finishing off” with the professionals. In the meantime, my Mum accompanied me as licenced driver while I drove to and from work (about half an hours drive each way during peak hour). At the end of the day I sat my test and passed, not with flying colours, but I passed 5/10. I was deducted 5 for relying too heavily on good brakes in a new vehicle. The instructor’s comment to the driving school was: “Very good, she’s one of your better ones”. I had reached the ripe old age of 34. Although I didn’t plan it this way, hindsight tells me that it was right and I feel as if I benefitted from not driving too soon.
  
  We should increase the drinking age to 21; the voting age to 21 and the enlistment age to 21. Whilst that may seem to be going backwards, I sincerely believe that it would be a much better thing to do. I do not believe that young people are adults at 18. Being an adult implies maturity and I don’t believe maturity comes at 18 INMYHO.
  
  Reply
- S.L says:
  
  04:00pm | 11/02/10
  
  Time 1 hour ago. I’m driving on a major 4 lane road through my area when I spot a red P plater in a well worn VN Commodore in a side street accelerating hard to beat the oncoming traffic to a roundabout. By the attitude of the faded red rocketship in the corner I’d say the McPherson struts on the front end are the original 22 year old specials but of course the equally faded fibreglass body kit and stereo that would rival a U2 concert must make up for the obvious lack of maintenence. After a few hundred metres our hero took off down the next street as bravely as he left the last one. I proceeded a few streets further on before turning off into a back street to my local shops. As I was hopping out of my car I spotted a red flash flying up the street. Yes it was him again! This time deciding to dive into the exit of the carpark to beat a couple of other cars to the only spot available. As gronk number 1 stayed in the car, motor reving and stereo blasting, gronk number 2 got the supplies from the bottlo and before you knew it they were off like a shot out of a gun again!!!
  How do you legislate against that?
  
  Reply
- Greg says:
  
  06:12pm | 11/02/10
  
  Sadly, when I was a young bloke I drove like a d**khead too. Thankfully I never killed or injured anyone although I came close on a couple of occasions to doing a job on myself. A couple of crashed cars later, I am now in my 30’s and as part of my job I am on the road daily. I see kids with P plates just like me 17 years ago doing stupid things and I shake my head and wonder how do you get this out of their systems? I need to know because I’m the father of a young bloke and it scares the sh*t out of me that he will do some of the stupid things I did.
  
  I think this issue needs to be addressed by parents rather than governments and perhaps any ad campaigns might have more effect if directed at parents than the kids.
  
  Reply
James says:

11:09am | 12/02/10

The best you can do for your son is tell him about how you got it out of your system. What he does with that knowledge is, in the end, up to him. But you will have done all you can, and that is the most than any parent can do for their child. Good luck.
- nick says:
  
  10:47pm | 11/02/10
  
  the government need to put alot more driving training for new drivers, its the only way drivers will get better, you’ll never stop ppl from breaking the road laws but at least with more training they’ll know what to do when something goes wrong, P platers now are taughthow to get to point A to point B, they teach you no car controll
  
  blame speed all you want but its far from the cause of most crashes on our roads
  
  what pisses me off the most about how the government and police fight the road toll is by blaming hoons and harassing anybody driving a modifed sports car, i love being treated like a criminal and having my car taken off the road because of the car i drive not how i drive it
  
  Reply
- Pertharina says:
  
  11:09pm | 12/02/10
  
  I think the trick is to allow kids to drive mopeds - 50cc - from the age of 14 or 15, and furthermore, to not allow then to even get L plates until they have been on a moped for two years. This would teach reading the road around you, using your mirrors, and what total idiots other road users can be. Having been a moped driver myself, I know how downright terrifying it can be. You have to have yours eyes, ears and wits about you.
  In this way, kids would get their precious independence; they would have to learn real road and driving skills in an environment in which they cannot be distracted by their mates or go any faster than 80; and any stupidity would result in their deaths alone, thus weeding out the really dumb/reckless ones.
  
  Reply
Unsure about that... says:

12:54pm | 13/02/10

I don’t know whether that would work ... I don’t think kids would take that very seriously. Driving a car would be seen as the serious thing that you learn to do when you’re older, and driving a moped would be seen as the cool thing you get to do when you’re 14/15. And then once they’d been learning on the moped for a couple of years, they’d be in the habit of driving recklessly, and would continue to do that in cars.
LC says:

05:59pm | 20/03/11

@ Unsure

But you have to admit this is true:

“any stupidity would result in their deaths alone, thus weeding out the really dumb/reckless ones.”
- cherry-picker says:
  
  01:54am | 16/02/10
  
  When I started going out with my 22 y.o. boyfriend (before the chicains and roundabouts were the norm) he would often speed through the backstreets to avoid the traffic and police but would stick to the speed limit on the highways - in case a copper was around. Well, that was until I had had enough and told him that if he wanted to speed, don’t do it on quiet backstreets where kids and families walk cause they don’t expect a hoon on their quiet street. Instead, speed (if you must) on the highways where people expect fast cars. So what if you have take your chances with the police? At least it’s a “fair fight”. He’d never thought of speeding that way before.
  Twenty-five years later, he has never sped intentionally since, even on main roads.
  
  Instead of highlighting the few hoons and their bad behaviour, we should openly ‘socially’ reward the many young people who do drive responsibly: Make it “cool” to be taking responsibility.
  After all, don’t kids usually want be ‘grown up’ and treated like adults?
  
  Reply
Goneril says:

03:59pm | 18/02/10

That’s a good idea, cherry-picker - positive reinforcement has been proven to be more effective than negative reinforcement.
- Mrniceguy351 says:
  
  12:15am | 19/02/10
  
  In my experiance things were way worse “in the old days”. Im 35 now and we were growing up we all had V8’s (351 XD’s were the choice) and we drove the wheels off them. Burnouts eveywhere (no hoon laws then), drifting the whole bit. Although we didnt go for the street racing so much. Nowadays i still ride dirtbikes and through that know some of the younger generation and they seem like gentleman compared to how we used to be. Alot of them dont drink much and dont do drugs (we drunk like fish and smoked bongs like it was going out of fashion), but i guess you dont hear about these youngsters so much as the drunken reprobates we all like to read about.
  
  Reply
- Wacky Racer says:
  
  07:46pm | 21/02/10
  
  All you guys bashing us hoons should that fuk up. If I want to drive my car flat out, I will. Maybe all you goodie two shoes instead of crying like little babies about us speeding, should give us a place to drag race and do burn outs. Down here in Adelaide the stupid Roote Rat Ran won’t build us any facilities where we can go and race and do burn outs. So we have no other option but to use public roads. Me an me mates will continue to drag race and do burn outs on public roads until there is some place else where we can do it. If you want us off your street, get the govt to build a place for us to go, until then shut up and deal with it.
  
  Reply
Hippo says:

10:03am | 22/02/10

That’s a ridiculous and unfair position to take - it’s like saying to your parents, “Until you buy me this shooting video game, I’ll go around with a real gun shooting real people.”
LC says:

12:15pm | 28/07/11

Look at the cars you drive. How much $$$ do people like you put into your cars? You can get togther some of your hoon mates, pool some money together and pay for it yourself, the government has better things to spend taxpayers money on.

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Colgo 09 Feb 12 07:40PM

RT @lillithtitania: Pictures show Adolf Hitler practising poses for his speeches - and relaxing in lederhosen http://t.co/7Idp5dWY via @news_com_au

farrm51 09 Feb 12 06:08PM

More gay marriage legislation than you can point a straight stick at. http://t.co/k2SC4xNp

Colgo 09 Feb 12 05:48PM

@c41 yes it is.

drpiotrowski 09 Feb 12 05:43PM

Tomorrow on The Punch: why we're being shafted at the ATM.

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choice ringside rantings

From: Punch on: Open thread 09/02/2012

marley says:

I'm one of the older ones, so I've certainly seen a few changes in my time. When I started school I learned to write with a nib pen, dipped in an inkwell (no, I'm not kidding). My mother became a dab hand at getting inkstains out of my clothes. Flicking ink at one another in the classroom was an essential… [read more]

From: I’d rather have a piece of toast than listen to crap lyrics

Erick says:

Led Zeppelin are responsible for my all-time favourite mixed metaphor: "There you sit, sit and stare, like a book on a shelf rusting." (Misty Mountain Hop) I laugh every time I hear it. Hmmm, I believe I've decided what to play on the way to work today. [read more]

Light weight

Gentle jabs to the ribs

No wuckin forries. These nuckin futs are tuckin fops

Well, puck me with a fitchfork. The F-word is apparently an acceptable part of Australian speech. That’s… Read more

151 comments

Too fast, too young - has teen driving become worse?

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