To Doug and others

I must say I disagree about people as young as 14 learning to drive. Sure we all know that some kids on farms learn to drive at very young ages, but we are talking about kids on public roads here.

16 year olds can get learners permits and I think this is wrong and now I have time I will list my reasons.

Now, firstly let me say that I am no expert on teenagers, I am neither a parent or a teacher. But I believe that 16 year olds take up driving mainly to impress other teenagers (ie impress their mates and attract members of the opposite sex).

Correct me if I am wrong, and this mainly applies to kids in co-ed schools, their mindset is (1) I must look good (2) I must impress my mates (3) I must be seen to be cool (4) I must not appear to be poor, even if I am poor (5) if I achieve points 1-4 I will attract members of the opposite sex.

And what is one way in which you can achieve all of the above – by owning a car and driving to school. Then once you have the car you can (a) install a big sound system (b) do burnouts in front of your peers (3) do burnouts with your peers in the car (d) go cruising with 5 – mates, or better still, with 1 – 2 mates and 2 – 3 girls (e) make fun of poor kids that can’t afford a car.

If this isn’t enough to convince you the Taskforce report even states that 16-20 year olds make up 6% of road users but are involved in 18% or crashes.

A lot of the reasons listed above are reasons why I think co-ed schools should be scrapped. In fact, there is plenty of research out there that proves that students of single sex schools perform better than students of co-ed schools.

Plenty of kids in history have gotten to school without a car and I think that not having a car between the ages of 16 – 18 will make kids do better at school. They have enough on their plate with hormones, exam pressure, peer pressure, working a part time job, etc without worrying about cars.

Here’s an idea. Authorities should paint a picture that by finishing high school your reward is freedom in the form of a licence and a car. 16 and 17 year olds are too immature, let them finish school, get all the crap out of their life, so they can get to uni and relax a bit.

Which leads me back to education. A lot of people believe kids are as smart today as they have ever been but I strongly disagree. Yes I agree there are some very tech savvy kids out there but if academic performance is the measuring stick then I would have to say that this generation of teens are by far the dumbest in history.

English, maths and science are not compulsory subjects in the HSC and both universities and employers constantly complain about the lack of education in this country. Kids are leaving school at 18 who cannot read, write, spell or do simple sums in their heads. Universities have to run bridging courses to get some students up to speed.

So, should we should let these dimwits behind the wheel of a car at 16? I don’t think so.

And why has this come about? Kids are taught to read by word recognition instead of the way we learnt, where we learnt the alphabet, then two letter words, three, etc, and we learnt to sound words out. Heck, even words we weren’t taught we could figure out.

On top of this they receive no corporal punishment. If they really muck up they might be “unlucky” enough to be sent home for a week. That’s no punishment, that’s a freaking holiday! If they had this in my day I would have skipped years 8 & 9 and lobbed up for year 10.

Teachers cannot manhandle students for fear of being charged with assault or sexual harassment.

And the bit I really love, the grading system, or should I say the no-grading system.  These days kids can go right through high school not knowing how dumb they are or not knowing they have the reading ability of a 5 year old because we cannot hurt their self esteem. The parents are also at a loss to know whether they should be saving their pennies to put the kid through uni, saving to put them in drug & alcohol rehab or just using the cash to go to Tahiti.

Well, thank you do-gooders. They cannot have harsh words said about them, they do not get A’s, B’s, etc, they are not ranked using percentile bands, and they are not ranked within their form or even against others in their class.

Do you still think that 16 and 17 year olds should be let loose on the roads?

But because some are a bit savvy people think they are smart. These days they memorise all their work, without understanding it, and think they are smart. One day one of these “geniuses” may be standing over you with a scalpel trying to recall by photographic memory how to do a quadruple bypass.

These kids are not capable of independent thought. They have spellcheck, calculators, the internet to do all their research (can you imagine if they had to do research in a library – they wouldn’t know where to start) and God knows what else, but take it all away and you’re left with nothing.

Australia is breeding a bunch of spoilt dummies with no respect for authority. They wrap them up in cotton wool and wonder what the problem is.

And talking of wrapping in cotton wool. Kids cannot cross roads properly these days and I blame the stupid 40kmh zones around schools. Outside of school they cross roads without looking either way or if they do look in your direction when you are bearing down on them in your car at outrageous speeds like 60-80 kmh they stare you down and expect you to stop or slow down, which you have to or else you would hit them.

I finished uni in 1992 as a mature age student and even back then the kids were severely lacking in maths and spelling abilities, but at least they got the cane. So by my way of thinking, education standards have been a shambles for at least 15 years.

Feedback welcome. Kids, take your best shot, to respond you need to be able to read, write and spell. It's highly likely you do not possess all these skills so I won't hold my breath.

Gecks