PiledHigher wrote:
> What the? Surely this not the road safety message we should be getting
> out...
> I'm glad that victoria continues with 18 as driving age.
>
> In the text the car lost control.... Once again what the?, the driver
> lost control. His parents want him to recover with a clear concience,
> sorry not for you...
>
>
>
> Don't blame driver, say parents
> http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,20626721-662,00.html
> <snip>
>
I reckon what they're trying to say is for the media and the public not
to rip into him for what he's done. He's got to live with the fact that
he killed 3 of his good mates. He will never forget it, and will need
all the support he can get because of his mistake. Other papers have
been reporting that the only thing the kid says when he's awake is "oh
my god I killed them, oh my god I killed them."
The media and the public getting stuck into him is only going to make
things worse, and without the right support, the kid may well commit
suicide.
Other news sources cite that witnesses say the boy wasn't speeding, and
police do not think that drugs or alcohol were a factor either. The
road was wet and lined with trees (if the high speed road was lined with
trees, why was it not also lined with armco to prevent people hitting
the trees?). The kid was driving a rear wheel drive car, and as
learning skid control is frowned upon by authorities in this country for
some ungodly reason, the kid will have had no idea what to do if he lost
the back end of his car on a wet road.
The kid had only had his licence four days when he had the accident,
again raising calls for newly licensed drivers to have a curfew and/or a
passenger limit. I agree with the passenger limit, peer pressure is the
most dangerous thing to find in a car full of teenagers.
As for the legal driving age, many countries around the world let kids
as young as 14 obtain a restricted motorcycle/moped licence. They are
then allowed to start driving cars at 16. Compulsory driver training
can cost as much as AU$2000, which includes on track training, skid
control, classroom training, etc, by professionals. Why are we so
backward in this country? No Australian politician has the balls to say
that a system like that is really needed in Australia. Instead the
responsibility is passed onto children's parents who also don't know how
to drive. How many encounters have the readers of this newsgroup had
with older, adult drivers? Chances are, each of those drivers will
teach a child to drive in their lifetime. Chances are, each of those
children will have heard their parents say "bloody cyclists, bloody taxi
drivers, *********** I'm 5 minutes late" whilst tailgating, performing
erratic lane changes, failing to keep left unless overtaking, driving at
70 odd in 50 zones, and generally driving like a moron. Then everyone
has a go at new drivers who start doing the same thing?
Until each state and territory gets a politician who has the guts to
take on a far too conservative driver education system, then things like
this will keep happening. The useless kiddy bashing will continue every
time there is a multiple fatality involving young drivers, and we will
get nowhere.
--
SL.
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