What they need to do is take all the tuner Integras off the road and the overall accident rate will drop 90%.

BTW – a few weeks ago a tuner Integra tried to overtake me by flying into a left lane doing about 60mph on a city street. The idiot rammed into a triangular island that forces the left turn lane to go left. He went involutarily skidding to a stop on his trashed rims with exploded tires, trashed front and rear suspension, and front bumper components grinding on the asphalt. I suppose I could have braked and slowed to let him swerve in, but I fugure each braking costs me 1 to 2 cents, and why should I waste 2 cents of my money to save an idiot $10,000 or so. I laughed my butt off when I drove by and saw the look of shock on the fools face.

Ricardo, it’s nice to know I share the road with morally bankrupt people such as yourself.

If teens can’t drive unsupervised at night, then they obviously will be driving a lot less at night and their accident rate would have to decline . . . duh.

this is a good idea… driving isn’t a right, it’s a priveledge.
Wait… night time restriction at 11 pm? That’s pretty late, I’d think they’d make it more like 9:00 pm.

Please tell me, Renton, what is so morally bankrupt about watching a punk who, by virtue of his stupidly malicious driving habits and illegal manuevers, is endangering the lives of many people including me, not to mention animals and himself, get his just desserts for driving like a jackass?
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Yes I laughed about it, as did everyone I told it too at work. Guarantee you he learned a good lesson, because there is no way an insurance company is going to fork out because he ran into an island while speeding in the left turn lane trying to overtake a guy who was doing 50 in a 45 zone. 10k out of his pocket is cheap compared to the damage the idiot will cost to society if he doesn’t learn to think when he’s behind the wheel. Hope moron-boy’s racing machine was paid for and he can afford a new set of wheels, because his old set was totalled by his own stupidity.

This is so stupid. The rates of crashes and accidents is going to be lowered at any age if restrictions such as these BS ones are put in place. If a 40 year old adult is not allowed to drive at night or with other people in the car, their crash rates will drop as well. This proves nothing but how the entire country is trying to put the blame on teenagers for being the cause of all car accidents. The way to reduce accidents is to introduce teens to driving earlier. Just like learning a new language, the earlier in life you teach them, the easier it will be for the kid to learn. Also, instead of imposing those bogus restrictions on teens, which causes them to get less experience in real world driving and how to handle a car, to require driving courses mandatory. I don’t mean driver’s education either, I mean a driving school such as Bondurant or Skip Barber. This way, teens will understand the limits of a car and how to save themselves from themself.

You can’t vote until 18 and you can’t taste the joys of Remy Martin until 19-21 but you can aim a 6000 pound Tahoe at 16?
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WTF?

Rob, I’m guessing your 16, or in the close neighborhood. Am I right?
A forty year old is a lot less likely than a teenager to get in a wreck with other forty year olds in the car because by and large they aren’t as concerned about impressing their passengers as sixteen year olds are. There have been several studies that point to teenagers being a lot less focused on driving correctly when they have friends in the car. However to me this speaks more about life experience than driving experience. For this reason, learning earlier is, in my opinion, not the right answer. However, better instruction and more applicable and difficult testing is. What I learned in Drivers Ed was more or less a waste of time. I paid little attention in class and was fairly shocked to see the testing agent hand me my license after no study and only achieving a 67% on my driving test. To be honest I was a bit ashamed.

In my opinion if you want people in general to be better drivers make it far more difficult for them to get a license. 90-95% should be the passing grade not 65%, and remove all the useless questions about how soon to notify the state when you have bought a new car. Anything that you have to work hard for always means more to you than something that comes easily. Driving is definitely a priviledge, one that can bring severe consequences when poorly managed. Because of this the bar to entry should be set very high (but not impossibly so) for everyone.

as one of LLN’s beloved liberals, i will speak up for my wingnut brethren and say i DESPISE these teenage-driving-limitation laws as more george bush / protect me from the scary brown people / daddy fascist state / post-9/11 power-grab drivel.

my kids are 19 and 17. i live in california – i’ve been dealing with these stupid laws. more bull**** enacted by insurance companies to maximize profits while limiting the freedom of parents to have their kids drive as they see fit.

why should the State of California tell me who can drive in MY vehicle which i provide for my daughter?

in our never-ending quest to create a “safe” world, we are legislating ourselves into subjugation.

if you love personal freedom, you should hate laws like this.

that is all.

California is so cluttered with stupid jackasses, no wonder this program works so well.

“why should the State of California tell me who can drive in MY vehicle which i provide for my daughter?”

a.) Because she is driving on public/government roads?
b.) Because she is not driving in a vacuum?
c.) Because the government likes control?
d.) All of the above

any one will do.

All this shows is that if less drivers are on the road, less accidents will occur.

Jim in LA

Move to Germany… Then you’ll be really pissed off.

you restrict when and how they can drive Obviously the accident rates will go down. Insurence companies can and do manipulate the statistics to suit their own monitary ambitions. also our politicians state and federal go along with whatever loby group PAYS THEM THE MOST. Regardless of whether its good for the country/state or not. What the teens need is better and longer at the wheel driver training under real conditions in traffic etc… restricting them only makes them want to go nuts when the restrictions are finally off…

nice “nazi” reference, “Bush”! godwin’s law in action. look it up.

and as far as california being loaded with “stupid jackassees,” trust me, we would be more than happy to cut the rest of you net-negative-tax-revenue states free.

just let us know when you’re ready to stop being subsidized by us.

Bravo California. Teens are the worst of drivers in the 21st century and I applaud this type of restrictions. And reducing their death rates is a bonus as well.

I am Swiss, born and raised there and learned to drive in Switzerland. Then, when I moved here (MA), I had to take again the exams to have a driver license (I guess 20 years of having a license somewhere else means nothing…oh well) and then I could compare my previous experience in Europe to what happens here.

The problem with safety and accidents here, from my observations, stems from:
- both tests in the US are ridiculous. Here in MA, you take your computer test and need to have 14 correct answers out of 20: that amounts to ONLY 70 % of correct answers. In Switzerland, you have a test with 50 questions and need to answer correctly to AT LEAST 47 of them (=94 %).
Then you have the regular driving test…here in the US, a 3-4 minute ride around the block that included a 3 point turn and backing up 50 feet along a curb and that was it. In Switzerland a driving test last anywhere from 30 to 40 minutes and it’s very extensive.
- where I come from, people have discipline. For example on highways you will never see anyone passing on the right…everybody use blinkers…if someone is merging into a lane, everybody lets you space to merge in…etc. etc.
Here I can see nothing of that…
- where I live, cops seem to be only interested in DUIs and speeding. Everything other bad behavior is not sanctioned: try in Switzerland to use a cell phone while operating your car…or passing on the right…or not to use a blinker. If there’s a cop around, you will get a ticket everytime. But here no one seems to bother about it…
- on top of that, the legal driving age is 18 and it makes sense. At 18 you are more mature than at 16, 2 years in teenager years is much more than say 28 to 30 or 36 to 38.

To conclude, over complicated laws like this one in California seem to me something pretty crazy. It would be better to enforce more serious exams in order to have a license, try to make people understand that a corteous and disciplined way to drive makes everyone life’s better and finally if you still want to be a moron, cops indeed do their job and sanction you for not obeying the law.

My $0.02

Al – don’t worry. My 17 years driving experience didn’t count in Europe either when I needed to get my german license, so I had to go to class with the bonehead 18 year olds and pay $1,000 for the pleasure. Best part was I was driving to Driving School in a convertible Mustang and parking up front while the kiddies stared in amazement. Plus … I aced my 50 question german exam with 100% and it only took 6 minutes … the Beamter was noticably distressed by this fact, so much so that he was actually intimidated by me during the Fahrprüfung when I told him to buckle up or get out.

At least here you probably didn’t have to pay a load in MA to get your license like when we go to Europe.

Hey Ricardo,
yes indeed to have a license here in MA it costed me almost nothing compared to Switzerland.
The funny thing was that I had to have a “sponsor” and seen that my wife (she is American, born and raised in MA) at the time didn’t have a drivers license (at the time, she was 30 and too scared of being on the road and didn’t obtain a license until a couple of years ago), I had my mother in law with me. It was a bit of a surreal experience (a’ la “Driving Miss Daisy”, if you know what I mean), but not bad at all.
Ah they played the little trick of waiting for you to actually tell them to buckle up uh ? They always try it…
Good for you that you completely aced the test there, at least I know there is someone here that knows how to drive PROPERLY !
If I may confess it, the first 6 months or so here in MA, I thought everyone was crazy and almost feared for my life every time I was behind the wheel of my car.
Now I got used to it, but I still wish that all drivers here in the US would travel to either Germany or Switzerland and see how different (and BETTER) people drive over there and perhaps try to behave a bit better on the roads here in America…

Jim in LA. My comment had nothing to do with Nazi’s. If you think you have it bad in CA, try doing the same in Germany. You can’t even look at a Mustang GT in Germany until you have several years driving experience, ie up to 22-25 years of age, plus you have to prove you can handle the car.

Talk about ageism. Morons come in all shapes, ages, colors, and sizes. All these restrictions do is punish the good kids that work hard, do well in school, and don’t get in trouble with the law. I say, make the tests harder; allow for 16 year old drivers if they are honor roll students (this is also incentive for those that don’t try to work harder); and those that have failed a grade or have gotten in trouble with the police to get a harder test (and take it 6 months later than the Honor Roll students), but also a special license where if they are pulled over for any driving infraction, they lose the license for at least 6 months and pay a fine.

One other thing about the german tests that is funny …. say you have a mutiple choice (A, B, C, or D) … here only one answer is right, so you have a one in four chance of getting it right if you don’t know and guess.
In Germany each question will have 4 choices, of which one thru all four may be correct, and you must check all the correct answers or else you get it wrong. Basically this virtually eliminates the ability to guess. If I remember right (it was 1996) there was actually some rule where if you left it blank, it counted as zero, but if you checked something and got it wrong, it was a minus 1, so they counted all the right answers and subtracted out the wrong ones, making it a lot harder to get the 47 out of 50 Al referred to.
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Pretty strict, yes, but that is why probably half the students have to retake the class from scratch (doubling the cost), plus if you don’t pass it twice and want to take it a third time, you have to go to psychological counseling before you are allowed to.
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The system cracked me up, and though drivers are generally more responsible there, the fatherland has more than its share of rechthaberische Schumi-wannabees who deserve to be shot, but if you give them the bird you get a ticket in the mail for a $ grand. That aspect of their law is bull****, which is probably why germans are always angry and need to drink so much.

bush – my apologies – what with rumsfeld comparing scary arabs to Hitler these days, and your name being Bush – well, it goes to figure.

germany blows – they may have kickass freeways but the rest of their cultural emphasis on control is decidedly not for this socal kid.

oh, and there’s the matter of those last 2 huge wars.

We have graduated licensing up here in Ontario, Canada. we’re allowed to apply for our G1 (or learner’s permit) at the age of 16. it is a written test that requires the applicant to know the rules of the road and road signs. this allows us to drive with a front passenger with 4 years experience with a full license. but not during the hours of 12am to 5am.

Then if we take a government and insurance approved driving course, we can get our G2 license after 8 months. (this grade of license allows free reign and independent driving, but there is zero-tolerance on alcohol.) if there is no schooling taken, it requires a full year to be allowed testing for a G2. this is a driving test that lasts between 3-20 minutes on city streets only. with a G2, you can take as many passengers as you want. however, for the first six months of obtaining your G2, you may only have one passenger after midnight and it must be a blood relative.

during your time with a G2 or G1, if you are caught by police, your license is taken away no questions asked.

After another year of driving, you may go for the full “G” license. this is another driving test that includes highway driving and more difficult driving maneuvers.

even as a 17 year old, i recognize the importance of restricting teenage driving.
when i was 16, it was a lot different from now as i have more experience and more confidence. however, my time on the road with my parents has taught me discipline as well.

i can’t say i speak for all teenagers, but even that one year makes all the difference. you can experience a multitude of situations that you may not have been able to handle on your own.
i’m not sure about the numbers here in canada, but it seems

Jim in LA
Considering whats going on these days I can appreciate where some of these answers are coming from. No offence taken.

I guess I’d be opening a huge can of worms if I suggested that states and counties could shift away from traffic citation revenue streams and move into making us pay up front for the driving exams, tests, annual fees, etc. to get their money– and in return allow us to legally travel at 100mph on public highways and not run constant speed traps and speed camera radar.

Wait… no, that would make too much sense and kill the insurance business. What Am I thinking! Heavens me!

Better driver examination and extended instructor time on real roads? 100 mile per hour speed limits? Acknowledging that some cars OR DRIVERS are able to safely travel on public roads and at high speeds on highways better than others simply because they demonstrate their skill (or lack thereof) to a driving instructor and are rewarded accordingly???

That would destroy an entire rigged industry! No, it’s better the way it is now. Better for all of us, the county revenue, public safety, and of course your local insurance company.

What an awful thing it would be indeed.

@ Ricardo:
Yep, basically same as in Switzerland. I remember I got 49 out of 50 and wasn’t happy about having missed one, but I got thru.
The psychological counseling if you don’t pass it with two attempts is exactly the same in Switzerland. I knew a guy who had to do it and his description of it was hilarious: he had to sit at a table with a DMV shrink and another officer of the same office that presented questions to him using toy cars on small plastic models depicting several traffic situations. The guy was quite traumatized by it…LOL
And yes, everywhere you can find people trying to emulate F1 drivers…I myself when I was a kid I did my fair share of less than pristine driving: once, to get to a date with this gorgeous looking gal, I hit end of the tach with my (modded) Ford Sierra Cosworth 4wd: 270 kmh (or 168 mph) on a highway with speed limit of 120 kmh (=75 mph). Stupid behavior at 100 %, that happened ’cause I was thinking with some other part of my body other than my brain. At least at the end I got the gal, she became my gf for 3 years…but it still doesn’t excuse it…

@ Jim in LA:
Germany (and Switzerland…and Austria…) doesn’t only have kickass freeways…you can actually enjoy them because 99.99 % of people driving there, drive in a way that is way more safe and efficient than around here.
That’s because they are taught in the right way and they keep on driving the right way, and if someone decides to break the rules, cops actually do something about it. You might call their ways “control”, I call it discipline and at the end everyone there profits from it. WAY better than here…If you don’t believe me, save some money and go there and see for yourself.
As far as the “last 2 huge wars” are concerned…this is an automotive forum, not a political one. Leave politics out of this place, please…

Am I the only one who thinks 16 is too young anyway for someone to drive unsupervised at all?
In a lot of countries learning to drive starts at that age, here they just updated the learning process and to get your solo drivers license you must of driven at least 120 hours supervised with a fully licensed driver before getting your probationary licence (no alcohol in your body and restrictions on types of high performence cars) then after 3 years of that you get your full license (0.05 BAC and any car you wish)

To the guy talking about the integra story, grow up anyone can drive **** you just remember it because it was an integra if it was a generic GM/FORD would your story be as memorable?

damn it, this better not come to wisconsin.