Posts by BenWilson
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"At fifteen you are not considered prepared or responsible enough to make decisions about your own body. You can't have sex. You can't smoke. You can't drink. But, inexplicably, you're allowed to make decisions behind the wheel that are, no hyperbole, life or death. That's arse-backwards, if you ask me. If you want to introduce a kid to responsibility you don't start with the ones where fuckups cause death for themselves and others..."
I agree. I think all those ages should be dropped. It's a modern phenomenon to treat mature humans as children. Why are people surprised when they act like children?
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"Further they are not eligible for a free subway food break until they have worked 5 hours straight ."
Wow! When I worked a McDonalds all they gave us was half price. The breaks were the legal minimum and ruthlessly enforced.
But they were never wankers enough to send you home during a shift just to save $. Instead, they'd find a make-work job that sucked even more than the usual suckful work. But you did get paid. $4.50 an hour, as I recall. My favourite job was compacting garbage, the only one that for some reason didn't need constant nagging supervision from some jumped up mini-Hitler.
Time to lean, time to clean!
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Yamis, the tricky part is equating 'good driving' with 'safe driving'. F1 drivers will definitely have better control over a vehicle than most, but will they drive faster to compensate? Personally, I pushed the limits when I was a kid, and generally handled it. But I ran the risk of a major accident, and had many minor ones, just from pushing. Perhaps I wouldn't have pushed it had I been required to wait until I was 20. Then again, I think my wildest period behind the wheel was around 25, because I had 10 years experience by then, a gruntier car, and I figured I could handle it. I became impatient on the motorway if stuck below 140, and only started to get scared around the 170 mark.
It's a tough subject, as is anything involving kids. Adults typically will find any fault they can in children so as to deny them responsibilities, and of course children have many faults. But they also have some massive advantages when it comes to learning things. It is the very fact that their brains are still developing that means their potential to learn driving is greater. I feel that learning responsibility is another one of those things and taking driving away leads to making it harder for kids to learn to be responsible.
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Again, I'm not buying that it's all about the country kids. All I'm saying is you seem to figure their needs are irrelevant. So you call them preferences. Well, I *prefer* not to walk to the supermarket 7 kms away too. I don't *need* to. I could spend several hours carting goods to and from, sure. I'm sure people in the middle ages had to do shit like that.
Nor do you *need* public transport to work in the city. You just prefer to. You could walk or ride a bicycle. Or choose not to work in the city. Or choose to go to London so you can catch the Tube.
I don't get the distinction you are trying to make. Humans have needs/preferences, and when making decisions about the public interest, you have to include the interests of all the public.
The only thing you're saying of relevance is that you don't think fifteen years olds are safe drivers. For some reason some other number seems to stick. Quite why I don't know, other than that you are probably over it. 20 year olds are probably less safe than 30 years olds too. And so on right up until our faculties begin to decline. Perhaps the only drivers allowed should be people in their late 40s? That would surely be safer.
I think Victor has a point. Just as it takes a lot longer to learn the piano, or how to swim, when you are older, so it probably takes longer to learn to drive. There is a lot more to it than muscle memory. Peripheral vision is a big factor and numerous studies have shown that people who drive have much better peripheral vision. Does it take longer as you get older? My wifes refusal to drive has led to a general atrophy in her road sense to the point where it is incredibly frustrating to drive with her, due to her fixation on the vehicle directly in front, and panicking responses to any brake lights. I'm looking about 10 seconds ahead and have already anticipated the braking and slowed down, but to her everything is sudden. I have had lots of similar experiences with non-drivers.
All anecdotal. Do you have any evidence of the opposite, though?
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Finn "People are quite welcome to live there and it shouldn't make any difference to whether such legislation is discussed or passed."
This is where we part ways. I think it does make a difference what other NZers want to do. Even teenagers. Shitting on country people for being country people isn't fair. Their needs are not irrelevant.
Not that I buy into the argument that our driving age is based around country kids. It's only a contributing factor. I would say our driving age is more based around our accepted working age. Kids can leave school and get a job at 15 and you're limiting their options even more than they have already done themselves by not allowing them to drive. Especially if they choose, for instance, to get a job driving, which is a perfectly valid profession for tens of thousands of people.
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Tom "No it isn't: you only need to "get around" if the things you need are far apart. My needs to get around, apart from within a 1km radius, are pretty minimal, and the few times that I need to leave the CBD, public transport generally suffices."
Yup. Won't it be great when all of NZ is like that. Also a cure for cancer will be good too. Which will come sooner?
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Finn, you were on a partially comical point that people with kids shouldn't live in Taranaki because it limits their options and makes it hard for us city folks to legislate against kids driving. I'm saying the argument scales. People shouldn't live in Auckland for the same reason.
Which is reductio ad absurdum, of course. I'm saying it's a silly argument, although I'm not convinced it wasn't meant to be anyway?
I still don't get your point saying that it's irrelevant what the country kids need. Just...lost, sorry.
I spend a fair bit of time with various teen levels, but it's not really relevant to my point. I carefully caveated that with "if we lived in a society that had always been that way". My point is that maturity is driven by responsibility, not the other way around. Obviously there's some age where the mind (and body) is too undeveloped to allow too much responsibility. But I personally think it's a lot younger than the average opinion on the matter appears to be. Our coddling of children and removal of their responsibilities removes their ability to learn responsibility. I absolutely do not think a 20 year old is a child. Most people that age have been physically mature enough to handle a car for about 8 years, and the mental side is basically unknown. If you keep a 20 year old a child then you end up with a dangerous and irresponsible full grown adult.
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Finn, your argument can be extended to say that noone should live in NZ.
I don't think teenagers needs are irrelevant at all. They are exactly as relevant as yours, probably more so because they have to live here longer.
Of course there's the question of maturity. But personally I think 12 would be old enough, if we lived in a society that had always been that way. You can't learn to drive without doing it, and delaying it just....delays it.
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Scott u lucky bugga. Minis were out of my price range.
Simon, heh, that puts it in perspective. A place where people ride motorbikes without helmets all the time, and famous for lawless driving, has similar death rates. My experience of driving in Thailand was similar. Bangkok seemed crazy till you got the hang of it, and got over yourself. Then you just go with the flow, buddhist style, and it was actually a lot less stressful than Auckland where every fuxor wants to have a go at you about some minor transgression of the rules.
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Scott, I think you'll find sex and loud music are both regulated. You have to be 16 for sex, and complaining neighbors can shut your music down and confiscate your stereo, just like that.
Your right/privilege point is lost on me. All rights are also privileges. All rights can also be revoked. But IMHO you need a bloody good reason, and 'the youth these days can't handle responsibility' isn't good enough.
Not meaning to gloat but the Auckland motorway improvements are starting to open and they're saving me a lot of time. I hope you guys get some of that soon down in Windington.
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