Your help needed..'Car Crash Reality Check' in bid to cut youth road toll

Here is a Clip from the Herald Sun…


“AUTHORITIES have dumped mangled car wrecks in the city centre in a desperate bid to shock young drivers into slowing down.”

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Surly this is not limited to Australia it must be a world wide problem. The authorities try shock ads graphic video…. But none appear to have much effect. They say they are having an effect but you have to wonder if it really is.

What do we have to do to stop our young ones from killing themselves? There isn’t a week go by when the news doesn't report a car full of youths killed in some kind of high speed crash. It’s not limited to them killing themselves we have cars mounting the pavements and killing pedestrians, innocent pedestrians.

Authorities approach this many ways including the shock ads I mentioned earlier – It strikes me that perhaps they should ask the general public for ideas

Do we need to ban them from owning/driving powerful cars until they are older?
Do we need better tuition?
Do we need more stringent driving tests?

There must be a way and idea that no one has thought of previously to make a difference. Please have your say in a discussion that could save our kids from serious accidents.

We welcome your thoughts and hopefully authorities around the world can benefit from this.

Moderators.. I accidently placed this in the wrong thread perhaps it should be in “Other Current Events” Please move if you wish.. Thanks

First thing people have to do is stop thinking of youth as *Our Youth*.
They’re not *Your Youth* unless they are related to you.
While it sounds like a great idea this *Our Youth* concept, in my opinion, it’s not.
Parents must take care of their own children.
Parents are responsible for their offspring and if they don’t take care of them, they’re taking the risk of loosing them.
This should be drilled (back) into each and every parent out there who’s been sucked into thinking society will take care of *their own*.
Thinking everyone else is going to pitch in to save *their* kids makes it far to easy for slip shod - or even good parents to slip out from under parental responsibility.
Inflicting (and I do mean inflicting) harsher rules for young drivers is only going to penalize those who are responsible and careful.
Parents, take care of your own, educate your own, keep your own.

I applaud you for caring, for wanting to help, for going to the length you have here.
I just come from the school of though - less government - more parents.

Thanks for your post.

first off, they should make mandatory for every new licensed driver to have to take a defensive driving course to learn how to control your car and safely stop when you lose control.

secondly, you could always install a roll cage if you are really worried about your ''youths'' crashing.

I admit I was and still am one of those youths that speed around, though I am 26 now I was smart and took it to the track and practiced in empty parking lots to learn my car.

encourage you children to take their cars to the track, auto-x or the like. Instructors there can teach them loads of info that would make them into a safer driver.

the main reason why such young kids die in these accidents comes down to one thing:

EXPERIENCE

I remember back when I was a school boy the authorities dumped some wrecked cars that had been involved in DWI accidents at our high school; with dried blood and hair still in the vehicles.

Two of my friends, who also saw the wreaks, died in their cars drunk.

One of the symptoms of being young is being stupid and presuming yourself invincible regardless of evidence to the contrary.

[edit on 1-11-2008 by whaaa]

Putting a smashed up car on the lawn in front of a high school around prom time is a common practice in the US.

Education helps. But there will always be those few that test out the limits of their cars.

Thanks everyone appreciate your responses so far. There are already some very good points.

Fair comment “silo13” about “our youth”. I can’t say I have seen anything that directly addresses the parents to coach their kids to drive more safely. Has this been tried in Italy?

I didn’t know the US has been putting out the wrecks for a while I guess they are copying it here now. What troubles me is “whaaa” already knows directly it didn’t have any effect on at least two of his friends.

Porshedrifter Appears to be the only person still driving around at speed although I think you are just outside of the danger age bracket in my mind anyway. You mentioned defensive driving course do you think that if this was made compulsory it would help. As an idea, what if a driver passing a defensive course got an insurance discount? As a younger driver please stay in touch with this thread you maybe able to provide good input.

Let me tell you some of my background. I've done two Cross country rally's, First was NY to LA second was NY to Vegas, reaching speeds of 189mph (on wide open empty road in the desert) Also I drift as well.

I can say without a doubt that, if parents encouraged their children to go to the local race track or find some autocross programs (every town has them) they would gain heaps of important experience about their car. Most local tracks have a track day where it's open to the public, there they can open their cars up and push it to the limits safely and learn exactly what it takes for the car to spin out and lose control and then how to counteract it in the best way. Especially invaluable to track on rainy days. After they go around the track two things will happen, They will fall in love with it and want to go there to speed legally and they will know on the public streets when they are about to go into that corner too fast or know that their car loses traction in the rain at this speed and slow down. If you catch my drift, It would make them into a more confident experienced driver.

Though it would cost more, it would make sense to put good all weather performance tires on their cars to insure they have optimal traction, after all shotty tires will provide less grip and leave the car more prone to losing control. Remember tires are the only thing keeping your car to the ground, wouldn't it make sense to spend a little more for a better compound?

[edit on 7-11-2008 by porschedrifter]