It's so funny you posted this because I was recently on my afternoon promenade when the thought popped into my head: Where have all the teenage psychiatric patients hopped up on goofballs drag-racing in my neighborhood gone? Dodging them used to give my walk a little sport. Sad to hear they're all layabouts now. When I was younger knocking down mailboxes with a baseball bat from the passenger's seat was practically a high school graduation requirement.
But seriously . . .
They’ll have to learn sooner than later. Better learn at a young age IMHO
Driving? Before the brain has finished developing?
I can't cite one specific study, but just seeing tweets over the years on micromobility and walkable cities, it seems like there are a lot of health benefits to societies where you don't need a car or to drive to do the things you mentioned (work, socialize, etc). People are in better shape, aren't as fat, are mentally healthier, etc.
Driving seems like a rather rational fear to me, and cars take up an inordinate amount of real estate for the amount they are actually used.
I would ask if these same patients refuse public transit, but it's so nonexistent most places, it's kind of a moot question.
In Sweden, I don't think the majority of my cousins drive (and they're now in their late 30s). There's just no need for it. And it's not part of the teen culture at all. I don't think you can get a license until 18, and it's very difficult to pass unlike the US.
When my mom immigrated to the US she was terrified to drive for quite a few years—I don't think she drove until her mid 20s.
I had to learn to drive at 16 because I went to a type of charter school that had no bus service. I was on Ativan at the time, and I even asked my psychiatrist if it was safe to drive on Ativan, and he said it would be dangerous if I wasn't on Ativan! Lol. I had so many near misses, times I closed my eyes because I had no idea what to do—I had no business driving. Despite all that, I ended up being a safer driver than a number of friends where it seemed like crashes were the rule and not the exception.
I understood all of your post except the driving part. Reminds me of the Sesame Street song "One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other."
I would not put driving in the same category as socializing, working, or going to school.
I wouldn't put using tobacco in that category either.
I'd put driving somewhere in a spectrum of: Fun but fairly dangerous recreation (driving can be fun but it is dangerous), unnecessary evil (unnecessary because we could do better and evil because of pollution, unwalkable cities, mass space taken up for parking etc), necessary evil (because we don't do better, but people in the suburbs still have to get around), and vice (again because we could do better).
Edit:
Going down memory lane after posting this. I went to high school with worldbeaters—people far smarter than me, and they were absolute idiots in cars. There were these two who drove in parallel to each other blocking traffic on a four lane road talking on their cell phones to coordinate exactly when to slam on the brakes so the people behind them would have to swerve out of the way, and there was one who drove with his door open collecting snow from the ground during a snowstorm (not even sure why). There were the mailbox vandals, but I didn't know them personally. Even the ones I knew peripherally who seemed like really good, well rounded people ended up being idiots. One who was in a group I went to prom with was driving us decided to just race the car next to us out of the blue, and we were probably going over 100 mph. These were all people who went to top colleges and done big things. But all were idiots. The one that surprised me the most was so virtuous, so high-achieving, so well-rounded, but she loved driving fast, and I didn't know until the summer after high school that she would drive drunk sometimes. She's a national book reviewer now and has been a CNN anchor and all sorts of things. She was brilliant, but absolutely dumb with cars. I didn't personally know anyone who died, but there were two people in my high school who did die in car accidents in my 4 year tenure, and this was a school of only 800 students. I just remembered two others: Two girls who would race each other back from the charter school to the "home school" (the public school). Crazy, dangerous speeds and driving. I can't think of one person other than myself who drove sanely—and I was not a good driver, but I'm the only one I can think of who *wanted* to drive safely.
I realized I never made my point: I think it's the absolute worst time to introduce driving. Historically it's a blight and best left to more developed brains when necessary.
Couldn't find the head blowing up emoji, but let me be brief but start with the disclaimer that I only read the first 3 or 4 responses and had to say something briefly. The responsibility for generation Z's failure to fly is completely a predictable outcome from the way generation Y handles children. I think I can speak for the other 22 of the other 24 lettered generations when I say that if you were not waiting in line at the DMV on your 16th birthday, there was something seriously wrong with you. Of course we would all like to have our older siblings and parents drive us around like they were our servants if they are willing. As Ye sow,...
